"She would know, though. She always knows. She's not asleep yet ... Sallykin!" The young person is on the other side of a mere wooden partition, congenial to the architecture of Lobjoit's, and her reply conveys the idea of a speaker in bed who hasn't moved to answer.
"What? Be quick. I'm going to sleep."
"I'm so sorry, chick. When was it I read to this man Mary and the fat boy in 'Pickwick'?"
"How should I know? Not when I was there."
"All right, Sarah." Thus Fenwick, to whom Sarah responds:
"Good-night, Jeremiah. Go to bed, and don't keep decent Christian people awake at this hour of the night. Take mother's book away, and cut it."
Rosalind closes her book and says: "I don't know, darling, if Sally doesn't. Why do you want to know?"
"Couldn't say. It crossed my mind. I know the kitten wasn't there, though. Good-night, love.... Oh yes, I shall sleep to-night. Ta, ta, Sarah—pleasant dreams!"
But he had not reached the door when the voice of Sarah came again, with the implication of a mouth that had come out into the open.
"Stop, Jeremiah!" it said. "It wasn't at K. Villa."