“I hope we shall often hear you,” said Mrs. Fulton. “I always think music is such a happy thing. Evangeline dear, ring the bell.”
“I have rung twice,” she said.
“Servants are very unpunctual as a race,” Mrs. Fulton observed. “I wish they would get up earlier, but I daresay they are often tired like we are.” Strickland came in with the hot dishes. “We shall want some more toast, I think, Strickland.”
“The fire’s not hot enough,” answered the maid. “The cook was late this morning.”
“Then just run up and make a little at the gas fire in the General’s dressing-room,” Susie ordered. “Will you help yourself, Captain Hatton.”
A few minutes later Cyril entered hurriedly in his dressing-gown. “I say, Sue, what the devil—hullo, Hatton, that you?—what the devil did you send that woman to make toast in my room for? I’d nothing but——”
“Cyril dear, never mind,” his wife interrupted. “The kitchen fire wasn’t quite ready; she won’t be a minute.”
“Well, I can’t go back to dress now,” he complained.
“It will teach us to be more punctual to-morrow,” said Mrs. Fulton. “We must set them a good example. Dicky ought to be down too.”
Teresa came in quietly and shut the door without looking at anyone. She was flushed and seemed preoccupied and had evidently forgotten Evangeline’s announcement of a guest. “My hair refuses to go up,” she began, turning straight to the sideboard. “I shall do it like some women I saw yesterday. The front was all in tiny plaits and the back—well, it wasn’t hairdressing, it was plumbing. You’ve been pretty hearty with the kedgeree, haven’t you?”