The gong sounded and there came the flutter of silk skirts on the staircase. Mrs. Barrimore, fresh and smiling, but with trouble in the dear grey eyes for those who could read them, entered the dining-room. Dan was already there with Uncle Robert, and presently Phyllis and Philip came in.
Philip was so occupied about the puzzling remarks he had just been hearing in the smoking-room that he forgot to resent his mother’s very charming appearance. Love can take ten years off any woman’s looks, and Mrs. Barrimore had a dear secret hidden under the dainty bodice.
“Well, Annie! What’s the old Colonel got to say?” Uncle Robert asked, with a defiant glance at Philip, who did not see it.
“The letter is all about the Hendersons,” Mrs. Barrimore answered with one of those lovely blushes of hers.
“They are most dreadfully poor,” she went on hurriedly, to cover her confusion. “There are two boys at Dulwich College. I wonder what they will do when they leave school!”
“They must go to Sandhurst,” affirmed Uncle Robert.
“But where is the money to come from?” she asked not unnaturally.
“Me!” shouted her brother. “M E—me!”
Everyone started, and Philip said: “Henderson is not a friend of yours—I don’t see—”
“No, you don’t see, Philip. You very often don’t see. Those boys must have a chance. It is the business of old bachelors who are well-off to look to these things—also—Bonum quo communices eo melius—which being interpreted for little Phyllis, means, ‘The good in which you let others share becomes thereby the better.’ We will have a confab after luncheon, Annie.”