Lancelot said to his porridge-bowl, over the spoon, "I think he's ripping."
"You've hit it," said his father. "He'd rip up anybody."
Lucy, piqued upon her tender part, was provoked into what she always avoided if she could—acrimony at breakfast.
"I was hostess, you see; and I must say that the more people talk the more I am obliged to them. I suppose that you asked Mr. Urquhart so that he might be amusing...."
James's head lifted again. You could see it over the Morning Post. "I asked Urquhart for quite other reasons, you remember."
"I don't know what they were," said Lucy. "My own reason was that he should make things go. 'A party in a parlour...'" She bit her lip. The Morning Post quivered but recovered itself.
"What was the party in a parlour, Mamma? Do tell me." That was Lancelot, with a flair for mischief.
"It was 'all silent and all damned,'" said Lucy.
"Jolly party," said Lancelot. "Not like yours, though." The Morning Post clacked like a bellying sail, then bore forward over an even keel. Lucy, beckoning Lancelot, left the breakfast-room.
She was ruffled, and so much so that Lancelot noticed it, and, being the very soul of tact where she was concerned, spoke neither of his father nor of Urquhart all the morning. In the afternoon the weather seemed more settled, and he allowed himself more play. He would like to see Mr. Urquhart on horseback, in a battle, he thought. He expected he'd be like Henry of Navarre. Lucy thought that he might be. Would he wear a white plume though? Much head-shaking over this. "Bareheaded, I bet you. He's just that sort. Dashing about! Absolutely reckless!—frightfully dangerous!—a smoking sword!—going like one o'clock! Oh, I bet you what you like." Then with startling conviction, "Father doesn't like him. Feels scored off, I expect. He wasn't though, but he might be, all the same ... I think Father always expects he's going to be scored off, don't you? At any minute." Lucy set herself to combat this hazard, which was very amusing and by no means a bad shot. Poor James! What a pity it was that he couldn't let himself like anybody. It was true—it was quite true—he was afraid of being scored off. She husbanded a sigh. "Poor James!"