Certainly there was a certain amount of excuse for those people who had already begun to say that Mrs. Romayne was never happy without her son by her side.
She spared no pains, however, to make him happy with her; and as they drove along there was probably no brighter or brisker talk than theirs in progress in all London. They drove through the West End streets and penetrated, in search of Miss Pomeroy’s requirements, into regions into which Mrs. Romayne had hardly ever penetrated before; regions which rather amused her to-day in their squalor. When Julian had done his commission in plenty of time to undo it and do it again before the bazaar came off, as he remarked with a laugh, they turned back again and went to Bond Street.
“I have a little private matter to attend to here,” said Julian, as he followed his mother into the jeweller’s shop. “You just have the kindness to stop at your end of the shop, will you, please, and leave me to mine?”
Mrs. Romayne laughed and shook her head at him. It was within a few days of her birthday, which was always demonstratively honoured by her son.
“Now, you are not to be extravagant,” she said, holding up a slender, threatening finger with mock severity. “Mind, I will not have it. I shall descend upon you unawares, and keep you in order.”
She let him leave her with another laugh, and he disappeared to the other end of the shop, while she followed a shopman to a counter near the door. Just turning away from it, she met Mrs. Pomeroy and her daughter.
“Now, this is really most delightful!” exclaimed Mrs. Pomeroy, if any speech so comfortable and so entirely unexcited may be described as an exclamation. “It is always charming to see you, dear Mrs. Romayne, of course; but it really is particularly charming this morning, isn’t it, Maud?”
“That’s very nice,” said Mrs. Romayne brightly, turning to Maud Pomeroy with a smile, and pressing the girl’s hand with an affectionate familiarity developed in her with regard to Miss Pomeroy by the last few weeks. A hardly perceptible touch of additional satisfaction had come to her face as she saw the mother and daughter. “Please tell me why?”
“Yes, of course,” said Mrs. Pomeroy placidly; she sat down as she spoke with that instinct for personal ease under all circumstances, which was her ruling characteristic. “That is just what I want to do. My dear Mrs. Romayne, it is the bazaar, of course. It really is a most awkward thing, isn’t it, Maud? It seems that we have asked twenty-one ladies—all most important—to become stall-holders, and we can’t possibly make room for more than eighteen stalls! Now, what would you—— Ah, Mr. Romayne, how do you do?”
Mrs. Pomeroy had broken off her tale of woe as placidly as she had begun it, and had greeted Julian with comfortable cordiality. He had come up hastily, not becoming aware of his mother’s companions until he was close to them.