“Oh, were you? But that’s several weeks ago. I don’t think I can claim much sympathy on account of the death of my cousins. Please don’t, Mynheer Mopius. Besides, he was your nephew—wasn’t he?—so you can condole with yourself.”
“He was.” Mynheer Mopius thoughtfully stroked his hat. “We are a—kind of connection, Mevrouw.”
“Ursula and you? So I understood,” retorted Helena, hastily. “I hope Mevrouw Mopius is well? It was very kind of her to send me those flowers last night.”
“How delicate! How high-bred!” reflected Mopius. “Oh, Mevrouw,” he stammered, “it was nothing. The merest trifle—”
“But she must never do it, or anything like it, again.”
Mynheer Mopius was doubly charmed. Whenever he made a fool of himself, he was tempted thereto by the belief that ladies found him irresistible. Some few men develop that fancy. Surely, in Mynheer Mopius’s case, his first wife was more to blame than he himself.
“The unfading roses are yours,” he said, simpering and bowing.
“Have another cup of tea,” interrupted Helena, sharply.
The old Indian, as we know, was a great connoisseur; he had gulped down two bowls of hot water already, imagining that it would not be proper to refuse. He meekly accepted a third, but its tepid unsavoriness aroused his native assumption.
“If I may make so free,” he said, “I should like to ask where you get—ahem!—this, Mevrouw”—he tapped his cup—“and what you pay for it?”