The chiming of the clock reminded French that it was already dark and high time Dicky was dispatched home.
“Do you want to take these grapes home with you,” asked Stephen, “or shall I send you a basket of them tomorrow?”
Dicky looked coy.
“If you don’t mind,” he said, “I guess I’ll take the chocolates, and you can send the grapes to-morrow.”
He pulled a very dirty handkerchief from his pocket, in order to provide a wrapping for the chocolates, and, as he spread it on the table, a letter dropped out. He turned his eyes upon French with an expression of sincere regret.
“I say!” he began. “Now, isn’t that too bad! And Deena so particular that you should get the note before tea time. I’m awfully sorry, Mr. French—it’s all Bridget’s fault. Deena said if I got that note to you before five o’clock I should have a piece of cake, and when Bridget wouldn’t give it to me it made me so mad I forgot everything. I wanted to kill her.”
“I know just how you felt,” said Stephen, with irony.
Dicky was tying his chocolates into a hard ball, but with the finishing grimy knot he tossed responsibility to the winds.
“Oh, well,” he said, soothingly, “you’ve got it now, at any rate, so there’s no occasion for saying just when I gave it to you, unless you want to get a fellow into trouble.”
Stephen looked grave; he did want Mrs. Ponsonby to know why he had failed to follow her suggestion of taking tea with her at her mother’s house—and also he hated evasion.