“Nonsense, my good sir,” he said, in what for him was a tone of light jocularity. “There now! I hear them answering the door and your friend inquiring for you. Just ask him to come in,” and he opened the drawing-room door as he spoke. “I’ll step out with you myself.”
There was no longer any getting out of it for Mr Milne. He hurried forward with the intention of an explanatory word or two with Mr Littlewood, but in this he literally reckoned without his host, for Mr Morion was at his heels, and there was nothing for it but a formal introduction on the spot.
“Pray, come in,” said Mr Morion; “we are just having tea. My wife and daughters are in the drawing-room,” he said, with a wave of his hand in that direction, “and Mr Milne always pays us a visit when he comes down.”
The newcomer glanced at the lawyer in some surprise. This was scarcely the boorish hermit who had been described to him. All the same, he was not desirous of embarrassing himself with the acquaintanceship of this family, whose very existence he had almost ignored, or at least forgotten, till Mr Milne took occasion to refer to them.
But the afternoon was drawing in to evening; it was raw and chilly outside, and disagreeably draughty in the doorway where he stood, and the prospect of a hot cup of tea was not without its attraction.
“Thanks, many thanks,” he said. “We haven’t long to spare, but I should be sorry to hurry Milne,” and so saying he entered the little hall.
In the drawing-room, meantime, the suppressed excitement of the two younger of its four inmates was increasing momentarily, Eira, indeed, being so far carried away by it as to approach the half-open door, or doorway, so as to lose no word of the colloquy taking place outside.
“Betty! Frances!” she exclaimed, though in a whisper, her cheeks growing momentarily pinker, “he’s coming in! I do believe he’s coming in, and his voice doesn’t sound as if he were old at all. He’s tall, too, and”—with another furtive jerk of her head—“as far as I can see, I do believe he’s very good-looking.”
Frances was springing forward with uplifted finger, in dismay at Eira’s behaviour, when for once, to her relief, her mother took the matter out of her hands.
“Eira,” she said quickly, so that, even if her voice had been overheard by those outside, no chiding tone could have been suspected, “Eira, I am really ashamed of you. Sit down quietly and take your tea.”