“Shall I ring now?”
“Yes, yes. We’re all ready,” said the young people excitedly.
So the little maid came in and began to remove the plates in her usual clattering style. But when she had gathered four in a heap on her tray, her blue eyes began to goggle again, and by the time she had amassed the lot they seemed ready to fall out of her head with some incomprehensible emotion; or a mixture of emotions. For horror, surprise, and admiration were all mingled in the final goggle which she cast upon the party as she retired from the room.
In an incredibly brief space of time, considering she had to put on a clean apron, Mrs. Jebb appeared bearing a dish of stewed raspberries and cream. The little maid followed close behind her, as if for protection, and they both now wore the queer mingled expression, complicated, in Mrs. Jebb’s case, by the most acute and lively curiosity.
She had sworn never to wait, and held any form of “waiting” to be beneath the dignity of a lady-cook-housekeeper, but curiosity is a passion stronger than pride, and she glanced hastily round the room, searching the sideboard, the side-table, the window-seat, even the floor.
Then an imperceptible nod passed between her and the little maid—but it expressed columns of close newspaper print—and they retired backwards together, both now goggling alike upon the company and closing the door with an odd reluctance, as if they shut in some fascinating horror.
The guests feigned to be unconscious of this singular behaviour, though Mrs. Stamford really began to feel as if she were having lunch in a nightmare, and it was Andy himself who spluttered out, purple with suppressed laughter—
“They think we’ve eaten the b-bones!”
“The what?” cried Bill.
Then a light kindled from one face to the other until they all sat in a blaze of hilarious comprehension.