Mr. Pemberton took little part in the somewhat banal but good-humoured conversation that now sprang up, but drummed idly with his fingers on the settee on which he was lounging. Now and again a monosyllabic drawl fell languidly from him, and Paul read into this demeanour annoyance at his presence.
Mrs. Potter, he soon learnt—for the lady was loquacious—was a widow and a journalist on a three months' stay in Europe, of which she was passing a month in London, endeavouring to make as much copy out of it as possible. She related with glee, and without any apparent qualms of conscience, how she had "fixed up" accounts of various great society functions, writing her copy in the first person.
"Lisa is so good and helpful to me. I impose on her dreadfully. I should never have been able to get them fixed up without her. And then her spelling is so perfect—she runs over my copy and puts it right in a jiffy."
"Lemon or cream, Mr. Middleton, please?" asked Miss Brooke. "Two lumps of sugar or one? What, none at all! Oh, yes, everybody thinks these cups sweetly pretty. I'm taking them home with me as a souvenir."
"What shall I do without you in Paris?" broke in Mrs. Potter again. "I shall be lost there. Can't I coax you to come back with me, Lisa dear?"
"Can't disappoint poppa," said Miss Brooke laconically.
"You'll have me to come to," drawled Mr. Pemberton.
"You'll be handy for some things, but your spelling's worse than mine," said Mrs. Potter; and somewhat irrelevantly went on to suppose that Paul must know Paris well.
Paul, alas! had only two visits to boast of, one of a week's, the other of two weeks' duration, both in the company of his mother. Whereupon a sound, as of a suppressed snigger, came from the direction of Pemberton.
Something like the truth had begun to dawn on Paul's mind, and he knew better now than to continue to expect Mrs. Brooke to appear. He had sufficiently gathered from the conversation that Miss Brooke was on her way home from Paris to America, and that she was going to travel alone, and had taken London en route, probably armed with letters of introduction. Most likely, he argued, she must have considered the one room sufficient for her needs, and had not anticipated callers. Or perhaps Americans, for all he knew, did not mind receiving callers in a bedroom. This, he concluded, was probably the case, as no one seemed in the least gêné, despite that the bed was such a palpable fact, and stood there in massive unblushingness. Otherwise an atmosphere of feminine daintiness seemed to surround Miss Brooke, transforming even this lodging-house bedroom.