She looked up with her frank, clear eyes, and said—
'I was trying to remember some lines near the beginning of Faust.
They are about a clergyman and a comedian.'
This was beyond Mr. Tom; and so he said nothing. But what Nan had meant had been uttered in a moment of bitterness, and was entirely unjust. Mr. Jacomb was not failing in any proper respect for his sacred calling. But he was among some young people; he hoped they would not think his costume coercive; he wished to let them know that his youth also had only been the other day, as it were, and that he appreciated a joke as well as any one. If his speech at the moment was frivolous—and, indeed, intentionally frivolous—his life had not been frivolous. He had never intrigued or cajoled for preferment, but had done the work that lay nearest him. At Oxford he had toadied no one. And his 'record,' as the Americans say, in that parish in the southeast of London, was unblemished and even noble.
But he made a hash of it that evening, somehow. Nan Beresford grew more and more depressed and disheartened—almost ashamed. If Frank King had not been there, perhaps she would have cared less; but she knew—without daring to look—that Frank King was regarding and listening with an earnest and cruel scrutiny.
When the time came for their starting for the theatre, Nan disappeared. Tom began to make a noise, and then the message came that, Please sir, Miss Anne had a headache, and might she be excused? Tom made a further noise, and declared that the whole thing must be put off. Go to see a pantomime without Nan he would not. Then a further message came from Miss Anne, saying that she would be greatly distressed if they did not go; and so, after no end of growling and grumbling, Mr. Tom put his party into two cabs and took them off. Nan heard the roll of the wheels lessen and cease.
It was about half-past eleven that night that someone noisily entered Nan's room, and lit the gas. Nan opening her eyes—for she was in bed and asleep—beheld a figure there, all white with snow.
'Oh, Nan,' said this new-comer, in great excitement, 'I must tell you all about it. There has been such fun. Never such a gale known on the south coast——'
'Child!' said the now thoroughly awakened sister, 'go at once and take off your things. You will be wet through!'
'Oh, this is nothing,' said Madge, whose pink cheeks showed what she had faced. 'I left a whole avalanche in the hall. The streets are a foot deep already. Not a cab to be got. We had to fight our way from the theatre arm in arm; the wind and snow were like to lift us off our feet altogether. Frank said it reminded him of Canada. All the gentlemen are below; Tom would have them come in to get them some mulled claret.'
Madge's ejaculatory sentences came to an end simply for want of breath.
She was all panting.