“Er—thanks very much,” he said, “I think I’ll wait for the morning paper. What time do you get it?”
“I expect it has come,” said Evangeline. “The boy generally flings it in at the kitchen window.” She rang the bell. “Breakfast, please, Strickland, and the paper if it has come,” she ordered.
“I was waiting till Mrs. Fulton came down,” said the maid severely. Evangeline sighed again. “How obstructive everyone is this morning,” she thought, but said aloud, “No, we’ll begin please, and anyhow I want the paper.”
But neither came and the silence grew heavier. She wanted to rush out of the room; she knew that her hair was untidy and two of her finger nails were grubby owing to having restored a strayed worm to what she thought a safe place on the bank of the pond, where a duck had eaten him at once to her disgust. But she could not move from the sofa where she had taken refuge with her rejected paper. The barrier of Captain Hatton’s eye stretched between her and the door and she felt that it might touch her as she ran past; if it did she would have to scream. Suddenly—“A—tish—u!”—a fearful explosion. Captain Hatton had sneezed. There was a dead silence while Evangeline held her breath and dared not look. Then again the awful sound; and again; eight times.
“I beg your pardon,” he said when all was quiet again. “Extraordinary how these attacks come on.”
The great friendly creature cheered up at once on this crumb of encouragement. “I like sneezing,” she said. “It almost takes the place of swearing. You feel better and no harm done to anybody.”
“Ah—h’m,” he agreed without enthusiasm.
“There’s Mother coming,” she said thankfully as a gentle rustle was heard in the passage. Susie came in in a soft breakfast gown that avoided conclusions with her figure. Her hair was beautifully done and her face delicately cared for. Captain Hatton, though he approved of her evidently careful toilet, took a vague dislike to her because it had not been carried through at the specified time.
“I am so sorry my husband is late,” she murmured, “I am afraid we got into bad habits in London. Everything is so late there and the morning is really the loveliest time, isn’t it? I remember once being out at six to catch a train and the birds were simply delightful. Do you sing at all?” she inquired, her eyes brimming with sympathetic interest.
“I do occasionally,” he admitted, heartily wishing that his chief would come and relieve him.