Darwen was sitting at the piano, he had swung round to face Carstairs as he entered. "Hurray!" he answered in an unemotional voice at the announcement of the news.
"I was just turning the corner of High Street with—a friend." He caught Mrs Darwen's eye as he hesitated slightly on the word, she smiled delighted approval. Darwen's eyes gave a little flicker from his mother to Carstairs, and unnoticed, he smiled, ever so slightly, too: Carstairs continued. "I had just turned the corner when the lights went out. I—er—jumped into a hansom—"
Mrs Darwen looked at him in pained surprise, so that he stopped in wonder.
"What about your friend?" Darwen asked, and his eyes were very bright.
"I—er—I left her in the street." For three generations or more, the Carstairs had spoken the truth (mostly), this, the youngest scion of the sturdy old stock, could not easily bend to deception.
Darwen laughed aloud. "Carstairs has got a girl, mater," he said with much amusement. "He was just regaling her with a little light converse about volts and engines when the lights went out, and he forgot all about the girl, and hurried off to the works." He paused and looked from his mother to Carstairs with brilliant sparkling eyes. "What's her name, Carstairs?"
Carstairs looked helplessly at Mrs Darwen and remained silent.
She looked perplexed, angry, and sorrowful, all at once.
Darwen laughed again. "Oh, mater!" he said. "I didn't think it of you! Accessory before and after the fact. Aiding and abetting old Carstairs to break a poor girl's heart: he was getting on so nicely too, just about to propose, when something distracted his attention and he forgot all about it, and the girl and everything else, so that she came in here half way between tears and chucking the pots and pans about. And now, two hours afterwards, old Carstairs turns up to finish the remark he was about to make. And it's lucky for you, old chap, that she's not in, because she'd either have gazed at you as if you were an unclean reptile, or else she'd have chucked the furniture at you."
Carstairs sat down limply. "Has she gone away again?" he asked helplessly.