“Naw, don’t tell mother,” he mutters, and suffers himself to be led away.
“Oh, I am so ashamed! so ashamed, Mr. Bertram!” says Annie. “Do pray forgive him. He is only a lad.”
“I would forgive him much heavier offences. He is your brother.”
“God bless you, sir,” she says, softly, looking back at him as she goes out of the door.
“Dear little girl! Dear, honest little girl!” murmurs Bertram. “I will try and get her the kitchen, and the muffin, and the cat, which form her ideal, and some good fellow to sit with her by the hearth. Good Heavens! Can one ever be grateful enough for being saved from relationship to Sam? What an exciting and exhausting day! And I have been very Philistine!”
He looks wearily round the room; it has become shockingly disordered; the drawers of the cabinet are still on the floor; the chairs which fell are still upside down; the broken whip lies in the corner; he is extremely thirsty, and he has not an idea where the mineral waters or the syphon of seltzer, or even the glasses, are kept. In a single quarter of an hour without Critchett order and harmony have been replaced by chaos.
“What miserable, helpless creatures we are!” he reflects. “Of course it all comes from the utterly false system of one person leaning on others.”
Yet he reluctantly realises that this false system has its merits, as far as individual comfort goes.
At that moment there is a sharp ring at the door-bell, and a moment later still a male voice cries:
“Can I come in, Bertram?”