Conversation was easy. Lancelot talked freely of his father. "Father will be awfully waxy with me for not going to bed. He might easily come in here—hope he won't, all the same. But do you know what he likes? He likes the same things to happen at the same time every day. Now Mamma and I don't agree with him, you see. So it's rather pink sometimes."
"I expect it is," Urquhart said.
"Mamma of course likes to be quiet a bit. She doesn't like ructions—hay, and all that. So I keep myself pretty close."
"Quite right," said the Judge.
"I know," Lancelot said, dreamily, and then with great briskness, "Beastly grind, all the same." The Judge had a fit of coughing, and Urquhart got up and looked about. Then the Judge said that he too should catch it if he didn't go back and make himself polite.
Lancelot led the way back, but at the entry of the drawing-room, where the talk was buzzing like bees in a lime-tree, he put his hand on the switch, and showed the whites of his eyes. "Shall I dare you to switch it off?" he said to Urquhart, who replied, "Don't, or I shall do it." Lancelot and he entered the room; but before the Judge followed there was a momentary flicker of the lights. Lancelot nudged Urquhart. "He's all right," he said out of one corner of his mouth. "Oh, he's all right," Urquhart agreed.
They both went to Lucy, and Lingen looked mildly round, interrupted in his flow. Lancelot's greeting was, "Darling, you really must go to bed." He knew it. It was so obvious—the abhorrent eyeglass apart—that he didn't even try the pathetic "Only a week before school."
He got up, enquiring of his mother if she would swear to come up presently. "Well, good-bye," he said to Urquhart, and held out his hand.
"Good night to you," said Urquhart. "Anyhow, you know the worst."
But Lancelot shook his cautious head. "No," he said, "not the worst"—and then with a deep chuckle, "but the best. Hoho! Two wives!" With that he went.