“It’s all right; you needn’t be superstitious. He is in the best of spirits, and says I am not wanted, and that he’s got some tremendous operation in hand.”
“I do not suppose you would make much difference, dear Fred, even if you were wanted,” said Miss Phyllis sweetly. “Of course if he were ill we should go to him wherever he was. If he should have an accident now, I could bind up his arteries, or foment his foot if he strained it. I have not got my ambulance certificate for nothing. But keeping very well and quite rampant, and richer than anybody, what could we do for him?”
“It’s the sentiment of the thing,” said Fred.
“As if he ever thought of the sentiment; or minded anything about us.”
They returned to the house in the course of this conversation—where already the servants had cleared the dining-room and replaced it in its ordinary condition. Here Doris paused to tell the butler that dinner must be served early on account of her father’s departure: but her interference was received by that functionary with a bland smile, which rebuked the intrusion.
“We have known it, miss, since master came,” a little speech which brought back the young people to their original state of exasperated satisfaction.
“You see!” the girls said, while even Fred while he laughed felt a prick of irritation. Williams the butler had a great respect for his master, a respect by no means general in such cases. He had served a duke in his day, but he had never met with any one who was so indifferent to every one else, so masterful and easy in his egotism, as his present gentleman. And that he himself should have known what Mr. Dirom’s arrangements were, while the children did not know, was a thing that pleased this regent of the household. It was putting things in their proper place.
All the arrangements were made in the same unalterable imperious way. There was no hurry with Mr. Dirom. He dined and indulged in a great many remarks upon county people, whom he thought very small beer, he who was used to the best society. He would not in London have condescended to notice such people.
But in the country, if the girls liked, and as there was nothing better to be had—“From time to time give them a good spread,” he said; “don’t mind what’s the occasion—a good spread, all the delicacies of the season; that’s the sort of thing to do. Hang economy, that’s the virtue of the poor-proud. You’re not poor, thanks to me, and you have no call to be humble, chicks. Give it ’em grand, regardless of expense. As long as I’m there to pay, I like you to cut a figure. I like to feed ’em up and laugh in their faces. They’ll call me vulgar, you bet. Never mind; what I like is to let them say it, and then make them knuckle under. Let ’em see you’re rich,—that’s what the beggars feel,—and you’ll have every one of them, the best of them, on their knees. Pity is,” he added after a while, “that there’s nobody here that is any good. Nothing marriageable, eh, Phyll? Ah, well, for that fellow there, who might have picked up something better any day of his life; but nothing for you girls. Not so much as a bit of a young baronet, or even a Scotch squire. Nothing but the doctor; the doctor won’t do. I’m very indulgent, but there I draw the line. Do you hear, mother? No doctor. I’ll not stand the doctor—not till they’re forty at the least, and have got no other hope.”
The girls sat pale, and made no reply. Their mother gave a feeble laugh, as in duty bound, and said, “That’s your fun, George.” Thus the propriety of Doris’s statement that they ought to have been brought up in papa’s sphere was made apparent: for in that case they would have laughed too: whereas now they sat silent and pale, and looked at each other, with sentiments unutterable: fortunately the servants had gone away, but he was quite capable of having spoken before the servants.