Suddenly the little silver coffee spoon dropped from the Lady Mayoress's hand, and she sat bolt upright in her chair as if she had received a galvanic shock. At this inauspicious moment the Lord Mayor made his appearance, very jovial and full of happy morning greetings, mingled with pleasant apologies for being late.
Something in the expression of his wife's face, however, gave the worthy Lord Mayor an uncomfortable, apprehensive sort of feeling, the cheerful flow of his morning remarks died away in little sentences, as if the promise of their young life had been cut short.
The Lord Mayor chipped an egg nervously, and made a brave show of gulping his coffee.
"Well, Mum, you seem very interested in the morning paper," observed Sir Simon, with an assumption of hearty cheerfulness he was far from feeling.
Something in the expression of Mum's face seemed to baffle all analysis, as she continued to read without vouchsafing any answer. After a terrible pause the Lady Mayoress refolded the paper, and laying it upon the table, regarded her husband steadfastly with flushed face and sparkling eyes.
Sir Simon's heart seemed to sink into his boots.
"I thought you distinctly told me, Simon, when you returned, at what I can only describe as a most eccentric hour in the early morning, that you had been visiting an old friend."
"Quite right, my dear, I assure you I had. I'm right upon that point at any rate."
"You told me you had not been to a Pantomime," continued his wife, heedless of the interruption.
"No, my dear,—no Pantomime, I assure you; I never entered a theatre or a building of any such description."