Mr. Wycherly leant back in his chair and gazed helplessly at Elsa, who was now removing his breakfast things with her customary clatter. She would not meet his eye, for an uneasy feeling that she had "gone back on him" to a certain extent, disturbed her, and she was more than usually unapproachable in consequence.
She had finished clearing the table and was about to depart with the tray when Mr. Wycherly spoke: "Elsa," he said, "you had better take this money and use it as you did the other. You are quite right that Miss Esperance must know. It is an impertinence on our part to do anything without her knowledge: but I hope—I sincerely hope that in the future Miss Esperance will permit me to act as guardian to her great-nephews in more than name; that she will give me the right to take my share—in whatever may be necessary. But be reassured as to this, Elsa, I will not allow you to be blamed for what, after all, was wholly my fault: a grievous fault in taste, I confess: but it was done hastily, and, to be quite candid, I had wholly forgotten the circumstance until you very properly reminded me of it."
Mr. Wycherly spoke earnestly, and while he was talking Elsa had laid down the tray again on the centre table. She made no answer to this unusually long speech from him, but stood with her hard old face set like a flint, wholly expressionless, till she remarked suddenly and irrelevantly: "Could you tak' your breakfast at eight o'clock instead o' nine, sir?"
"Certainly," Mr. Wycherly replied, rather astonished at this abrupt, change of subject, "if you will be kind enough to call me rather earlier. Those little people wake me in excellent time."
"Would you let the mistress come here to her breakfast wi' you?"
Mr. Wycherly rose to his feet. "Do you think Miss Esperance would so far honour me, Elsa?"
Elsa and Mr. Wycherly stood looking at one another across the room. Suddenly she bent her eyes upon the carpet and spoke in a low, monotonous voice.
"Sir," she said, "it's like this. The mistress never gets a proper breakfast for those wee bairns——"
"I can well believe that," Mr. Wycherly interrupted.
"Now if you, sir" (it was surprising how fluently the 'sir' came to Elsa just then), "would just say that you'd like your breakfast a wee thing sooner in the morning and would ask the mistress, would she no have hers wi' you for the company. Then me an' Robina'll see that the wee boys has theirs. Don't you think, sir, you'd eat more yersel', if ye was no read—readin' a' the time? If ye'd just tell the mistress that? It's dull-like, isn't it, to eat yer lane?"