“I’ll go and tell her,” interrupted Mr. Bob Wheeler, delicately, using the inside edge of the table-cloth as a serviette. “I can do it better than Emma can. What she wants is comforting; Emma would go and snivel all over her.”
Mrs. Wheeler, raising her head from the sofa, regarded the speaker with looks of tender admiration, and the young man, after a lengthy glance in the small pier-glass ornamented with coloured paper, which stood on the mantel-piece, walked to the door.
“You needn’t trouble,” said Fraser, slowly; “I’m going to tell her.”
Mrs. Wheeler’s dull eyes snapped sharply. “She’s our lodger,” she said, aggressively.
“Yes, but I’m going to tell her,” rejoined the mate; “the skipper told me to.”
A startled silence was broken by Mr. Wheeler’s chair, which fell noisily.
“I mean,” stammered Fraser, meeting the perturbed gaze of the dock-foreman, “that he told me once if anything happened to him that I was to break the news to Miss Tyrell. It’s been such a shock to me I hardly know what I am saying.”
“Yes, you’ll go and frighten her,” said Bob Wheeler, endeavouring to push past him.
The mate blocked the doorway.
“Are you going to try to prevent me going out of a room in my own house?” blustered the young man.