‘I have not heard much music,’ she said. ‘We never go out. It bores mamma going out in the evening. I shall when I am older, perhaps; but not now.’
‘But if you never go out in the evening, what do you do with yourself?’ said Frank, with some consternation. Upon which Alice startled him completely by answering, in the softest matter-of-course voice, ‘We have mostly people with us at home.’
Here Frank came to a dead standstill. He glanced round upon the room, which, though pleasant, and cheerful, and homelike, bore no appearance of being adapted for such perpetual hospitality. ‘We have mostly people with us at home.’ Did they give dinners or dances, or what did they give in this curious, grey-green, picture-hung, half-lighted place? As if in answer to this question Mary at that moment came in with the tea, carrying a vast tray before her, with heaps of cups and saucers, substantial bread and butter, steaming urn, and all the paraphernalia of that modern meal. The young Guardsman looked on bewildered to see Alice rise, in the same calm, matter-of-course way, and rinse the teapot and make the tea. Was it the tea-party of humble life which he was in for? Would the guests come in presently and take their seats round the table and munch their bread and butter? And what if there might be muffins, perhaps, or buttered toast? Frank would have been amused had not Alice been there in the midst of it. He would have concluded that his brother had brought him to make acquaintance with the habits of the aborigines in these dingy regions out of the world. But then how came this creature there? He was relieved when he saw little Edith clamber up to her high chair, and became aware that it was only to be a family party after all. Frank was not sufficiently philanthropical, being a Guardsman, to interest himself much in the children and the bread and butter; but by degrees Alice surmounted all the obstacles of her surroundings, and began to cast a lovely haze upon the whole scene. He did not say much; he sat, if the truth must be told, in rather an embarrassed, sheepish way in his chair against the wall, with very little of the assurance natural to his profession. But then it must be taken into account that this was an undiscovered country,—such an America, as Columbus discovered, full of strange new beings, new customs,—a foreign world to Frank. He was out of his depth. When the padrona now and then turned to address him, with a vain attempt to make him comfortable, he felt himself drawl and yaw-haw as does the ordinary young swell of romance. And it was evident to him that his brother’s friend gave him up as quite impracticable. Little Edith, however, was less fastidious. She got down out of her high chair and placed it close to the stranger, and took him under her little wing.
‘Sit next to me,’ said Edith, ‘and you shall have some cake. Are you Laurie’s little brother? You are bigger than he is. Didn’t he say it was his little brother, Alice? But I always say Harry is my little brother, and he is a great deal,—such a great deal,—about six feet taller than me.’
‘And older too,’ said Harry. ‘I am eight and you are six. You’re not six till your birthday, and Alice is sixteen, and me and Frank——’
‘Nurse says girls are quite different,’ said little Edie. ‘You are only boys, you two. Are you Mr. Renton, as well as Laurie, Mr. Laurie’s brother?—how funny it would be to call you that!—or have you another name all to yourself?’
‘I am Frank,’ said the Guardsman, laughing; and then the boys drew near him, and Alice looked up smiling from her tea-making, and a certain acquaintance sprang up. To know that Alice was sixteen on the one side,—and to know that this young fellow, who gazed and addressed her in a tone so different from Laurie’s tone, for instance, was Frank, seemed somehow to give each of them a certain hold on the other. Frank put down his hat, and drew his chair to the table; and by-and-by they were all sitting round it, drinking tea and talking.
‘Laurie’s brother is not so stupid as I thought he was,’ the padrona said afterwards, as she made her resumé of the whole proceedings; and with that slight remark Mrs. Severn dismissed the matter from her thoughts. Laurie himself was trouble enough, the foolish fellow; but that any further complication should arise through Laurie’s brother was a thing which never entered into her mind.
When the two brothers left the house there was silence between them for some time. Indeed, little was said till they had got as far as Harley Street. Then, all at once, Laurie spoke.
‘You were out of your element in the Square,’ he said, with a little forced laugh. ‘You don’t understand the kind of thing; but I can tell you it is no small matter to me to have such a house to go to.’ This was uttered abruptly, and was not at all what he meant to say. To seem to apologise for the padrona and her house was as far as possible from his intention, and yet it sounded like an apology in his brother’s ears.