"Do you think she could speak to me here?" Eloquent continued humbly.
"I think not, sir; the mistress at present is dispensing tea to the fam'ly. She does not as a rule see people at the door. Can I take a message?"
"I fear I must disturb her," said Eloquent, conscious all the time that Fusby's mild gaze was concentrated on the suit-case. "One of her sons"—for the life of him he couldn't remember the boy's ridiculous name—"has broken his arm."
"Master Buz, sir?" asked Fusby, quite unmoved by the intelligence; "it's generally 'im."
"Yes, Master Buz, and he asked me to give you this. . . . It's some things of his. I'll send for the suit-case—put it out of the way somewhere—he was dressed up . . . these are the clothes——"
"He will 'ave 'is frolic," Fusby murmured indulgently; "a very light-'earted young gentleman he is—step this way, please, sir."
Fusby opened a door behind him, and announced in the voice of one issuing an edict, "Mr Gallup."
There seemed to Eloquent crowds of people in the hall, mostly gathered about a round table near the fire. He discerned Mrs Ffolliot in the very act of "dispensing tea" and General Grantly standing on the hearthrug warming his coat tails. Mary, too, he saw give a cup of tea into her grandfather's hands, and he was conscious of the presence of Mrs Grantly seated on an oaken settle at the other side of the fire from Mrs Ffolliot. These four were clear to him as he came into the hall. There was a fire of logs in the open fireplace and a good many lights, and Eloquent, coming out of the soft darkness of that winter afternoon, felt dazzled and intolerably hot.
The four people he saw first suddenly seemed to recede to an immeasurable distance, and he became conscious of others whom he could not focus. His tongue clave to the roof of his mouth, and he was conscious that at his entrance dead silence had fallen upon the group by the fire. Then Mrs Ffolliot rose and held out a kind fair hand to him, and said something that he could not hear. Somehow he reached the succouring hand and clung to it like a drowning man, mumbling the while, "Sorry to intrude upon you, but one of your sons"—again the name eluded him—"has broken his arm, and he's in my aunt's cottage."
"Look at Ganpie's tea!" exclaimed a shrill clear voice, and the Kitten diverted attention from Eloquent to the General, who was calmly pouring the tea from his newly filled cup upon the bear-skin hearthrug, as he gazed fixedly at this bringer of ill-tidings.