(“Quarrels are so upsetting to one’s digestion,” was Castleton’s thought. Yet not for anything would he have missed the human interest of the scene, which was “as good as a play.” Still the lull of talk was ominous, so he desperately addressed the only person from whom no explosion was to be feared.)
“What is coming next, waiter?”
“Suckie-pig, sir,” responded the gentle German.
Ronny’s curly pate appearing on a level with the table-cloth, and nestling between his mother and Jacynth confidingly, was a welcome diversion. All eyes turned with relief on the rosy, roguish face, alone unconscious of hidden trouble among them.
“It will soon be dessert-time; I may stay, mayn’t I, mummy?” coaxed the child confidently.
Then to beguile the time, he produced some glass marbles from his pocket, aiming at the salt-cellar, where his friend Jacynth fielded and sent them back. With her arm around her son, Fenella was chatting animatedly to De Mürger, rejoicing inwardly in her immense superiority over her opposite foes in possessing Ronny. A vagrant ball escaping the latter’s fingers, cannoned off a dish and flew straight into madame’s lap. With a secret honeyed glance at Ronny, she feigned to detain it.
“No, you mustn’t! That would be stealing, and then you would be put in prison,” remonstrated the child. Then looking at her with the sweet familiarity of one of Raphael’s cherubs, “Were you ever in prison?”
Mme. de Vigny, who was just lifting a full glass of claret to her lips, started, so that some wine was spilt. She raised her delicate brows, with a glance of charming dismay at Onslow’s gloomy face.
Castleton and Jacynth, noticing the accident, exchanged furtive, surprised looks. But Ronny, no more heeding that red splash than if he had slopped over his glass of milk, announced in joyous tones, “Because I was—very nearly. Grandison and me were very naughty once, and his nurse tried to give us to a p’leeceman, but we pulled at her dress so hard she couldn’t; and the p’leeceman shook his finger at me and said, ‘Next time!’—Oh, I say!”
Suddenly diving, so that his little body eluded Fenella’s grasp, to her surprise he rushed round the table and flung himself against Frank, who had annexed the truant marble, and was ostentatiously secreting it in his own pocket.