‘Oh, thanks, my dear,’ he said lightly. ‘I am sure everything will turn out for the best. I am the luckiest fellow alive, and don’t suppose I forget it.’
‘Some people always touch wood,’ said Lady Adela meditatively, ‘when they say a thing like that. Such a silly superstition. But, still, there may be something in it.’ She rapped the tea-table firmly.
Mother and son had been so absorbed in their dialogue that they had not heard the hall door bell ring. Suddenly the door opened, and Miss Mortimer was announced. Fresh, crisp, pleasant as ever, Gundred entered the room and kissed her future mother-in-law.
‘Dear Lady Adela,’ she said, ‘I felt I must come round and see how you were. This heat—so ridiculously trying for a climate like ours.’ Then she turned to Kingston. ‘And Kingston,’ she added; ‘how is he?’
‘Poor gentleman,’ replied her lover tragically. ‘Mr. Darnley has been quite on his last legs lately. But he recovered miraculously all of a sudden, as soon as he saw Mapleton showing somebody into the room.’
‘You really do talk the most shocking rubbish,’ said Gundred sensibly, but without disapproving sternness. ‘Lady Adela, why do you let Kingston talk such rubbish?’
‘My mother,’ replied Kingston, intercepting the mild remonstrance of Lady Adela’s reply, ‘brought me up to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. You asked me about the state of my feelings, and I gave you a truthful reply. Behold! Your coming has taught me, for the ninety-ninth time, that life is worth living. Sit down and I will ring for tea. My dear, surely it is tea-time? Gundred has clearly come here simply and solely to get a cup of tea. With me she will have nothing to say. It is tea she wants. She pants for it, like the hart for cooling brooks.’
‘Hush!’ said Gundred; ‘don’t talk like that. It’s irreverent. But, indeed, Lady Adela, I certainly should be delighted if you would let me stay and have some tea with you. I lunched with Aunt Agnes, and she gave me a lunch of unimaginable nastiness, so that now I feel as if I had not eaten for days.’
‘You poor darling!’ cried Lady Adela with pitying indignation; ‘that is always the way. Wait, and I will order you something really nice. Look after Gundred, Kingston dear, while I go and interview Tessington about to-night. I have been wanting to see her all the afternoon, and I can just as well have her up to the dining-room.’
Having thus tactfully explained her departure, Lady Adela left the lovers alone. A silence fell.