"What a fool I am! Didn't I say I wasn't going to have any silly sentimentality?—and here I am, simply wallowing in it. Come into the kitchen, young men, and see what I've got for the satisfaction of your gross appetites."
They followed her into the kitchen, and she turned round and looked at them both. They were very different. The elder brother, Leonard, was like Janet—dark both of hair and eye, with a healthy red under his tan. The younger's hair was between brown and auburn, and his eyes were large and blue and innocent like a child's. His mouth was not like a child's—indeed, there was a peculiar look of age in its drooping corners, and his teeth flashed suddenly, almost vindictively, when he spoke; it was lucky that they were so white and even, for he showed them with every movement of his lips—two fierce, shining rows.
"You're late," said Janet. "No, don't look at the clock, unless you've remembered how to do the old sum. It's really something after nine, and the train is supposed to get in at half-past seven."
"Yes—but I got hung up at Grinstead station, playing guardian angel to a kid."
"Let's hope the kid didn't ask to see your wings," said Leonard. "Was it a girl-kid or a boy-kid?"
"A girl-kid. There were five of 'em in my carriage. They'd been sent home from school for some reason or other, and this one evidently hadn't let her people know, for when she got out at East Grinstead there was no one to meet her. All the station cabs had been snapped up, and some loathly bounder got hold of her—goodness knows what would have happened if I hadn't turned up and managed to scatter him. I got her a taxi from the Dorset, and sent her off in it to Shovelstrode."
"Shovelstrode!—then she must be old Strife's daughter. What age was she?"
"I should put her down at sixteen, but very innocent."
"Pretty?"