It seemed a curious kind of welcome to a husband after a year's absence; but Leonard answered feebly that he would take a cup of tea. One of the numerous tea-tables had been established in a corner near the fire, and Miss Bridgeman, in neat grey silk and linen collar, as of old, was officiating, with Mr. Faddie in attendance, to distribute the cups.
"No tea, thanks," said Jack Vandeleur, coming in with his sisters still entwined about him, still faintly suggestive of that poor man and the sea-serpents. "Would it be too dreadful if I were to suggest S. & B.?"
Jessie Bridgeman touched a spring bell on the tea-table, and gave the required order. There was a joviality, a laissez-aller in the air of the place, with which soda and brandy seemed quite in harmony. Everything in the house seemed changed to Leonard's eye; and yet the furniture, the armour, the family portraits, brown and indistinguishable in this doubtful light, were all the same. There were no flowers about in tubs or on tables. That subtle grace—as of a thoughtful woman's hand ruling and arranging everything, artistic even where seeming most careless—was missing. Papers, books were thrown anyhow upon the tables; whips, carriage-rugs, wraps, hats, encumbered the chairs near the door. Half-a-dozen dogs—pointers, setters, collie—sprawled or prowled about the room. In nowise did his house now resemble the orderly mansion which his mother had ruled so long, and which his wife had maintained upon exactly the same lines after her aunt's death. He had grumbled at what he called a silly observance of his mother's fads. The air of the house was now much more in accordance with his own view of life, and yet the change angered as much as it perplexed him.
"Where's the boy?" he asked, exploring the hall and its occupants, with a blank stare.
"In his nursery. Where should he be?" exclaimed Christabel, lightly.
"I thought he would have been with you. I thought he might have been here to bid me welcome home."
He had made a picture in his mind, almost involuntarily, of the mother and child—she, calm and lovely as one of Murillo's Madonnas, with the little one on her knee. There was no vein of poetry in his nature, yet unconsciously the memory of such pictures had associated itself with his wife's image. And instead of that holy embodiment of maternal love, there flashed and sparkled before him this brilliant woman, with fair fluffy hair, and Louis Quinze coat, all a glitter with cut-steel.
"Home!" echoed Christabel, mockingly; "how sentimental you have grown. I've no doubt the boy will be charmed to see you, especially if you have brought him some South American toys; but I thought it would bore you to see him before you had dined. He shall be on view in the drawing-room before dinner, if you would really like to see him so soon."
"Don't trouble," said Leonard, curtly; "I can find my way to the nursery."
He went upstairs without another word, leaving his friend Jack seated in the midst of the cheerful circle, drinking soda water and brandy, and talking of their adventures upon the backbone of South America.