“I suppose he was awful?� hazarded the second-best beloved.
Lady Cranberry crumpled her eyebrows. “He had a complexion like New Zealand meat,� she said. “Next time you walk up the King’s Road with Lotta, watch her as you pass a cheap butcher’s shop. She will wince and look the other way, and you may guess what she is thinking of, poor darling!�
“She said to me once,� remarked the second-best one, “‘I always fretted for children, but perhaps they were wisely withheld.’�
“I should think so,� consented Lady Cranberry. “When there is a chance of an infant’s coming into the world with three chins and a nose like Punch, to say nothing of bandy legs and patent shoes like bicycle gear cases——�
The second-best reminded Lady Cranberry that children were not usually born with shoes.
“Of course, I meant feet,� said Lady Cranberry. “Feet of that size and flatness, too. And if there is the merest chance of a child’s coming into the world thus handicapped, it is infinitely better that the child should keep out of it. Here we are at Lotta’s door. Isn’t that cream enamel with the old Florentine copper-embossed knocker and bells too divine for anything? Great Heavens!�
She had evidently received a shock, for she was paler than her powder, and as she clutched her companion’s arm her eyes were fixed in quite a ghastly stare.
“Mercy!� the next best-beloved friend of the owner of the cream-white door with the Florentine copper work adjuncts exclaimed, “you saw something—what?�
But Lady Cranberry, with more energy than her weak state seemed to warrant, had ascended Mrs. Lovelace-Legge’s brown doorsteps, and was plying the Florentine knocker. The servant who responded to the summons thought that Mrs. Lovelace-Legge was at home, but knew her to be profoundly engaged.
“Take up the names. We will wait,� said Lady Cranberry. Then, as the respectful servant went upstairs, she drew her companion into the shelter of a little reposeful niche, in Liberty draperies and Indian carved wood, where palms and things flourished in pots, and an object of familiar shape, in bamboo work, and newly freed from swathings of brown paper, stood upon a table. To this she pointed with a neatly gloved forefinger that trembled with emotion.