Just then a servant came out of the house, and said something to my brother-in-law. He got up at once.
"It is Mr. Grenfell," he said to his wife, "and a friend with him. Shall I bring them out here?"
"Yes, it would really be a pity to go into the house again—it is so nice out here," she replied. And her husband went to meet his guests.
He appeared again in a minute or two, stepping out through the low window of the drawing-room, accompanied by the two gentlemen.
Mr. Grenfell was a young man living in the neighbourhood, whom we had known from his boyhood; the stranger he introduced to us as Sir Robert Masters. He was a middle-aged man, with a quiet, gentle bearing and expression.
"You will have some tea?" said my sister, after the first few words of greeting had passed. Mr. Grenfell declined. His friend accepted.
"Go into the drawing-room, Lily, please, and ring for a cup and saucer," said her aunt, noting the deficiency. "There was an extra one, but some one has poured milk into the saucer. It surely can't have been you, Mark, for Tiny?" she went on, turning to her husband. "You shouldn't let a dog drink out of anything we drink out of ourselves."
My brother-in-law looked rather comically penitent; he did not attempt to deny the charge.
"Only, my dear, you must allow," he pleaded, "that we do not drink our tea out of the saucers."
On what trifling links hang sometimes important results! Had it not been for Mark's transgressing in the matter of Tiny's milk we should never have learnt the circumstances which give to this simple relation of facts—valueless in itself—such interest, speculative and suggestive only, I am aware, as it may be found to possess.