"Yes, Mrs. Kraft!" was the fervent and almost unanimous reply.
"Yes, Mrs. Kraft!" hurried Philip, startled, belated. He observed quite distinctly the lips of the dark-eyed lady shape in mockery "Yes, Mrs. Kraft!" His veins burned resentment against the insolent mystery. The sun shouldered from behind a cloud and thrust his fingers into her thick hair. It sparkled and was alive with lights like a tray of gems in a jeweller's window. The flash and wealth of the girl's hair turned him swiftly veering towards Doomington, the thinning hair of his mother.
"Poor old mother!" he mused, deliberately switching his mind away from the lady of long lashes. "I wonder if the cough's eased down a bit? I wonder how many days it'll be before she's up and about again.... What a funny little nose she's got, a weird little cleft at the tip! What can she be doing in that lot? ... O blow the girl, what's she got to do with it anyhow? Why on earth shouldn't mother get away here, as soon as she's properly all right? Everything's kosher and all that sort of thing. He'll have to find the money somewhere, that's all! They could sell all those bechers and the plush table-cloth. And we never use the samovar nowadays! Oh what a rotten cough it was, like something tearing! Poor old..."
"You won't leave that piece of bread and butter on the plate unfinished, Philip Massel, please!" broke in the voice of Mrs. Kraft.
"I'm so sorry!" he said, a quiver in his voice, the cough still jangling and echoing in his brain, "I didn't notice it!"
He again caught the eyes of the dark lady. It seemed that mysteriously she had caught the infection of his sadness. Her eyes were rounder than they had been, though not less dark. Her speech was more subdued.
Or perhaps it was an illusion. Perhaps? Of course it was an illusion! A laughter fell from her throat like a shower of pebbles. Surely she couldn't have meant that almost imperceptible wink for him? An elder person was muttering uncomfortably, "Not so much jam, Mamie!"
Mamie!
An ever so much nicer name, when you came to think of it, than "Edie." "Edie" began with a screech and its one consonant was a miserable dental. Strange how totally Edie and her nymphs had slipped from his thoughts of late months! He remembered the thoroughly nasty row at school after the Walton Street period had brought him so abysmally low down in form. They had been giddy months.... He had learned a lot.... Then the Chaucer came, then the school exams. Then she fell ill and got worse as the weeks went on.... There had been no room for Edie. She was a sly, deceiving creature, not really to be trusted, though beautiful in a sort of way of course. Now Mamie ... extraordinary name, Mamie....
The boys had begun to file out of the room, and Philip turned his eyes once more towards Mamie, absurdly daring to hope she was looking in his direction, or, if not actually looking towards him, at least showing the black jewels of her eyes. But her head was turned away; he could make out the leaf of lettuce that was delicately approaching the hidden mouth.