“My poor, unwitting little boy! For you, too, the time shall come when ingratitude shall be your portion. You are a bachelor yourself—you drink cinder-tea, but the day shall arrive when you shall be told you know less about it than the hand that pours it out. Play while you can. Your least word is heeded now; but afterwards you shall cry wisdom in the nursery and shall not be regarded.”
Chris saw somehow that he was the subject of remark, and now, trimly toileted and elaborately combed, was ready for a story grim in giant and spiced with goblin. His mother, laughing at my apostrophe, made a chubby fleshy fold in the childish cheek that was pressed against her own, and looked at me in a way that admitted my capacity in fairy lore, if it discounted my more practical qualifications.
“Now, Chris,” she said, “Mr. Butterfield is going to tell you just a short story, and I’m going to receive my callers. Don’t be long, Mr. Butterfield. Come, Caroline.”
She vanished, and I entered the magic land of giants.
VII
THREE’S COMPANY
I had been told nothing about it, but I would have wagered my boot-trees that Carrie and Bassishaw had had a tiff. In the first place, Carrie had invited me to accompany them to the opera when she knew that my acceptance was possible, which was contrary to her usual practice. My presence on such occasions had of late been not indispensable; and these young people had gone about together with an aggressive air of sufficiency in each other’s company that had insulated them from my attentions and led me to muse on the thanklessness of youth.
“Are you going out with Arthur this evening, my dear?” I had asked.
“Well, yes, Rollo,” she had replied diffidently, “Arthur particularly wanted to take me to St. James’s Hall.”
“It is a refining entertainment. I haven’t heard Moore and Burgess for a long time. I think I’ll come with you.”
My sister evaded the main point, and countered on the inessential.