Evie had received the news of my approaching introduction to exalted personages with a certain wistfulness, which she had tried to cover with an extreme brightness of manner. Of course my position was altogether anomalous; that "scale of living" of Pepper's, coming far too early for my circumstances, was a white elephant; but I don't think it was that that made Evie at the same time brightly fussy and secretly shrinking. Rather, I imagine, it was that for the first time she began to fear my Ambition a little. I don't mean that hitherto she had been hoping that my great plans were baseless imaginings, but I do mean that she was settled and happy as she was, and that a Verandah Cottage twice as big would have contented her to the end of her days. When I brought that really splendid dress suit home (for I had had it sent to the F.B.C., not wishing those ducal tailors to know the poverty of my address), I think her mind suddenly enlarged to strange disturbing vistas, and she examined the stitching of the garments thoughtfully.
"They're beautifully made," she said softly. "I never saw anything finished like that. But I wish Mr Pepper had not had to pay for them."
"Pepper pay?" I laughed. "Pepper'll pay when the cows come home. It isn't that that's troubling me."
"What then?" she asked.
"I want to see you dressed like that too.... But don't you want to see me with them on?"
"Yes," she said, but as it were obediently, because I had suggested it.
I went upstairs and got into those costly garments. I had ordered shirts, and ties too, and, not being in the habit of wearing undergarments, I had to consider what to do with the small tab beneath the plastron that should have anchored me forrard. With my penknife I finally performed the operation for appendicitis upon it. Then, looking bigger even than usual, I descended, black, white and majestical.
"Your tie won't do," said Evie. "Come here."
But suddenly, as she was refashioning my bow, she flung her arms about my neck and burst into tears on my breast. Then, when I asked her gently what was the matter, she only withdrew herself, wiped her eyes, and said that she was silly. Queer creatures. It was only the newness and unfamiliarity of the prospect. It was as if she was quite happy in her poverty, merely thinking of riches....
I myself had the trifling care on my mind of who was going to sit with Evie while I lorded it at the Berkeley. Ordinarily I should have counted on her aunt, but Miss Angela had announced that she must go to Guildford that day on some business or other connected with the late Mrs Merridew's will. There was, of course, Miss Levey, but I still considered Verandah Cottage too humble for the friend of Lord Ernest and the confidante of the President of the Board of Trade. Evie protested that she would be quite all right alone, but that I would not hear of.