To Mrs. Doctor and even to Miss Preston it seemed rather odd that a real live graduate of Heaven-knew-where should sit tête-à-tête with poor Melia’s husband and be completely absorbed by him and the crude halting syllables he emitted from time to time. Still to the Mayor himself, standing with his broad back to the fire and toying like a large but domesticated wolf with a buttered scone, it didn’t seem so remarkable.
Josiah, at any rate, was able to perceive that his youngest daughter and his son-in-law were occupied with realities. They had been through the fire. Battle, murder, death in every unspeakable form had been their companions months on end. These two were full-fledged Initiates in an exclusive Order.
The Mayor, foursquare on the hearthrug, had never seemed more at home in the family circle, but, even his noble self-assurance abated a feather or two out of deference to Sally and the Corporal. They had been there. They knew. If Josiah had respect for anything it was for actual first-hand experience.
Mrs. Doctor, however, was not fettered by the vanities of hero worship. In spite of Sally and in spite of the Corporal she was able as usual to bring her light tea table artillery into play. At strategic intervals her high-pitched, authoritative voice took spasmodic charge of the proceedings. Now it was the Egg Fund and the incompetence of Lady Jope, now the latest dicta of Miss Heber-Knollys, now the widespread complaints of the Duke’s inaudibility at the Floral Hall.
Miss Preston fully agreed. “So different from you, Josiah.” She was well on the target as usual. “But he made up for it, didn’t he, by the nice things he said of you when he opened the Annex?”
“Very flattering, wasn’t he?” Mrs. Doctor took up the ball. “And wasn’t it charming of him to come here to lunch. Such an unaffected man!”
Josiah broke his scone in half and held a piece in each hand. “Why shouldn’t he come here?” The voice had the old huffiness, yet mitigated now by an undeniable twinkle of humor. “He got quite as good food here as he’d get at home, even if we don’t run to gold plate and flunkeys.”
“Quite, Josiah, quite,” piped the undefeated Gerty. “And only too glad, I’m sure, to come and see the Mayor of Blackhampton.”
The laugh of his worship verged upon the whimsical. “Gert, if you want my private opinion, he didn’t come to see me at all.”
“Pray, then, Father, who did he come to see?” fluted Mrs. Doctor.