“I will try to be good, mother.”
It was the old baby cry, the cry of us all, children that we are, till mother Nature kisses us and bids us go to sleep.
Their arms were round each other now, and so they sat, mother and child once more. And the twilight of the old attic, creeping westward from the east, found them again.
The masculine duet had more result, but was not conducted with the finesse that Mr. Eppington, who prided himself on his diplomacy, had intended. Indeed, so evidently ill at ease was that gentleman, when the moment came for talk, and so palpably were his pointless remarks mere efforts to delay an unpleasant subject, that Blake, always direct bluntly though not ill-naturedly asked him, “How much?”
Mr. Eppington was disconcerted.
“It’s not that—at least that’s not what I have come about,” he answered confusedly.
“What have you come about?”
Inwardly Mr. Eppington cursed himself for a fool, for the which he was perhaps not altogether without excuse. He had meant to act the part of a clever counsel, acquiring information while giving none; by a blunder, he found himself in the witness-box.
“Oh, nothing, nothing,” was the feeble response, “merely looked in to see how Edith was.”
“Much the same as at dinner last night, when you were here,” answered Blake. “Come, out with it.”