Baron frowned. “Why?” he asked again.
“If I’d carry you to the door and ring the bell, she’d have a fit when she came out. She’s pretty high-strung, anyway.” It was as if he were describing a woman of his own household, instead of Baron’s.
“Oh!” responded Baron. He was thinking that it was difficult to know where to expect chivalry in one form or another, and that there were various ways of manifesting it. “I believe you’re right,” he added.
It was Mrs. Baron who came to the door in response to a ring. It is not improbable that she had been looking out of the upper window.
“Your son wants to speak to you,” said the driver, dragging off his German cap and revealing a shock of dishevelled hair.
Mrs. Baron seemed to ignore the man utterly. She stood, pale and rigid, staring at Baron. She comprehended at least one thing: he had driven up to the door of the mansion in a beer-dray.
Then she smiled ominously. “What a quaint idea!” said she, passing the driver and descending the steps. “Of course, this is one of your jokes!”
She paused then. She had swiftly become less assured in her anger.
“I’ve had a mean fall, mother,” said Baron, trying to keep a martyr-like tone out of his voice. “I’m afraid I’ll have to be carried into the house. This man was good enough to bring me home. He was afraid of alarming you. It was his idea that you ought to be notified before he carried me in.”
“Oh, I didn’t understand!” There was swift, childlike remorse in her bearing. “It was kind of you,” she added to the driver, by way of atonement for her rudeness. She regarded him with flickering eyes. She could not help shrinking from the warm, gross bulk of the man, yet she admired him somewhat as a lamb might admire a benevolent bull that has just driven a wolf away.