“There's nothing much to do for the next half hour, till Cook comes back. I'll see to the door if you'd like a run out?” suggested Mrs. Pennycherry.
“It would be nice,” agreed the girl so soon as she had recovered power of speech; “it's just the time of day I like.”
“Don't be longer than the half hour,” added Mrs. Pennycherry.
Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square, assembled after dinner in the drawing-room, discussed the stranger with that freedom and frankness characteristic of Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square, towards the absent.
“Not what I call a smart young man,” was the opinion of Augustus Longcord, who was something in the City.
“Thpeaking for mythelf,” commented his partner Isidore, “hav'n'th any uthe for the thmart young man. Too many of him, ath it ith.”
“Must be pretty smart if he's one too many for you,” laughed his partner.
There was this to be said for the repartee of Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square: it was simple of construction and easy of comprehension.
“Well it made me feel good just looking at him,” declared Miss Kite, the highly coloured. “It was his clothes, I suppose—made me think of Noah and the ark—all that sort of thing.”
“It would be clothes that would make you think—if anything,” drawled the languid Miss Devine. She was a tall, handsome girl, engaged at the moment in futile efforts to recline with elegance and comfort combined upon a horsehair sofa. Miss Kite, by reason of having secured the only easy-chair, was unpopular that evening; so that Miss Devine's remark received from the rest of the company more approbation than perhaps it merited.