At this little sally he gleamed at me as goldenly as the spade guinea that dangled on his waistcoat. Then he rose and surveyed one by one a row of silent, sumptuous tomes in their glazed retreat: "The Sargasso Sea; h'm, h'm, h'm; and one might suppose," he cast a comprehensive glance at the taciturn shelves around and above us, "one might suppose the tuppenny box would afford some of these a more sociable haven."
But this was Greek to me. "Mrs Monnerie is generous?" he went on, "indulgent? Groundsel, seed, sugar, and a Fleming. Yet perhaps the door might be pushed just an inch or two farther open, eh? What I'm meaning, my dear, is, will you perhaps wait in patience a little? And if anything should go amiss, will you make me a promise to send just a wisp of a word and a penny stamp to an old friend who will be doing his best? The first lawyer, you know, was a waif that was adopted by a tortoise and a fox. Now I'm going to be a mole—with its fur on the bias, as Miss Rossetti happened to notice—and burrow. So you see, all will come well!"
I must have been sitting very straight and awkward on my stool, and not heeding what my face was telling.
"Is there anything else distressing you, my dear?" he asked anxiously, almost timidly.
"Only myself," I muttered. "There doesn't seem to be any end to it all. I grope on and on, and—the kindness only makes it worse. Can there be a riddle, Sir Walter, that hasn't any answer? I remember reading in a book that was given me that Man 'comes into the world like morning mushrooms.' Don't you think that's true; even, I mean, of—everybody?"
But his views on this subject were not to be shared with me for many a long day. Our half-hour was over; and there stood Mrs Monnerie, mushroom-shaped, it is true, but suggesting nothing of the evanescent, as she looked in on us from the mahogany doorway.
"How d'ye do, Sir Walter," she greeted him. "If it hadn't been for an exceedingly interesting young creature disguised, I understand, as a Miss Bowater, I should have had the happiness of seeing you earlier. And how is our Peri looking, do you think?"
"How is our Peri looking?" he repeated musingly, poising himself, and eyeing me, on his flat, gleaming boots; "why, Mrs Monnerie, as I suppose a Peri should be looking—into Paradise."
"Then, my Peri," said Mrs Monnerie blandly, "ask Sir Walter to be a complete angel, and stay to luncheon."