“That will do, Richard. Go and find your pumps. Now, get right up from the floor, and if you scratch the Morris chair I shall speak to your father. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Get right up—you must expect to be hurt, if you pull so. Come, Richard! Now, stop crying—a great boy like you! I am sorry I hurt your elbow, but you know very well you aren’t crying for that at all. Come along!”
His sister flitted by the door in an engaging déshabillé, her accordeon-pleated skirt held carefully from the floor, her hair in two glistening blue-knotted pigtails. A trail of rose-scented soap floated through the hall.
“Hurry up, Dick, or we’ll be late,” she called back sweetly, secure in the knowledge that if such virtuous accents maddened him still further, no one could blame her. His rage justified her faith.
“Oh, you shut up, will you!” he snarled.
“Secure in the knowledge that if such virtuous accents maddened him still further, no one could blame her.”
She looked meek, and listened to his deprivation of dessert for the rest of the week with an air of love for the sinner and hatred for the sin that deceived even her older sister, who was dressing her.
A desperately patient monologue from the next room indicated the course of events there.
“Your necktie is on the bed. No, I don’t know where the blue one is—it doesn’t matter; that is just as good. Yes, it is. No, you can not. You will have to wear one. Because no one ever goes without. I don’t know why.
“Many a boy would be thankful and glad to have silk stockings. Nonsense—your legs are warm enough. I don’t believe you. Now, Richard, how perfectly ridiculous! There is no left and right to stockings. You have no time to change. Shoes are a different thing. Well, hurry up, then. Because they are made so, I suppose. I don’t know why.