"Well, Direxia, how is Mrs. Tree to-day? would she like to see me, do you think?"
"She ain't no need to see you!"
The young doctor looked grieved, and turned away.
"But I expect she'd be pleased to. Step in!"
This was Direxia's one joke, and she never tired of it; no more did Geoffrey. He entered the cool dim parlour, which smelt of red cedar; the walls were panelled with it. The floor was of polished oak, dark with age; the chairs and tables were of rare foreign woods, satin and leopard wood, violet-wood and ebony. The late Captain Tree had been a man of fancy, and, sailing on many seas, never forgot his name, but bought precious woods wherever he found them.
"Here's the doctor!" said Direxia. "I expect he'll keep right on coming till he finds you sick."
"That's what he will do!" said Geoffrey. "No chance for me to-day, though, I see. How do you do, Mrs. Tree? I think it is hardly respectable for you to look so well. Can't you give me one little symptom? not a tiny crick in your back? you ought to have one, sitting in that chair."
Mrs. Tree was sitting bolt upright in an ancient straight-backed chair of curious workmanship. It was too high for her, so her little feet, of which she was inordinately vain, rested on a hassock of crimson tapestry. She wore white silk stockings, and slippers of cinnamon-coloured satin to match her gown. A raffled black silk apron, a net kerchief pinned with a quaint diamond brooch, and a cap suggesting the Corinthian Order, completed her costume. Her face was netted close with fine wrinkles, but there was no sign of age in her bright dark eyes.
"Never you trouble yourself about my cheer!" said the old lady with some severity. "Sit down in one yourself—there are plenty of lolloping ones if your back's weak—and tell me what mischief you have been up to lately. I wouldn't trust you round the corner."
"You'll break my heart some day," said Geoffrey, with a heavy sigh; "and then you will be sorry, Mrs. Tree. Mischief? Let me see! I set Jim Arthur's collar-bone this morning; do you care about Jim Arthur? he fell off his bicycle against a stone wall."