"We get on very well in a quiet way; she is a very good girl, and comes and sits in my smoking-room by the hour with me."
"Wrong, but pleasant, as the monkey said when he kissed the cat," remarks Esther, flippantly. "You are very fond of her, I suppose?"
"H'm!" shrugging his shoulders. "I have a cat-like propensity for getting fond of anything that I live and eat and breathe with—like the fellow in the Bastille, don't you know, that got so fond of a spider. I never should have grown fond of a spider, though; they have got such a monstrous lot of long legs; but the principle is the same."
"Why are not you fond of Sir Thomas then?"
"So I am, I suppose, in a way; if he were to tumble into the pool, I suppose I should hop in and fish him out again; I'm not quite sure about that, either."
"We'll have another rubber, miladi?" shouts Sir Thomas's stentor voice, elate with victory; "that is the ninth game I have beat you to-night; you'll never win as long as you leave so many blots—I have told you so a score of times."
Poor miladi, strangling a gigantic yawn, begins to set her men again; she had hoped that her punishment was ended for the night, and that she might be dismissed to the otium cum dignitate of her armchair and nap.
St. John jumps up and walks over to the players; there are few things in life he hates so much as playing backgammon with his father, but he hates seeing his mother bullied even more. If a man is cursed with a necessity for loving something, the chances are that he will love his mother, even if she bear more resemblance to a porpoise than to a Christian lady.
"I'll have a rubber with you, Sir Thomas; my mother is tired."
"Fiddlesticks!" growls Sir Thomas. "Tired! what the devil has she been doing to tire herself?—fiddle-faddled about the garden, picking off half a dozen dead roses. Very good thing for her if she is."