Home came Adrian and Irene, and filled the silence of the house with voices. Something was afoot, clearly; something not unpleasant, to judge by the laugh of the latter. The room-door, whose hasp never bit properly—causing Adrian to perpetrate an atrocious joke about a disappointed Cleopatra—swung wide with an unseen cause, which was revealed by a soft nose, a dog's, in contact with Sir Hamilton's hand. He acknowledged Achilles, who trotted away satisfied, to complete an examination of all the other inmates of the house, his invariable custom after an outing. He would ratify or sanction them, and drop asleep with a clear conscience.
"Hay? What's all that? What's all the rumpus?" says the Baronet, outside at the stair-top. The sounds of the voices are pleasant and welcome to him, and he courts their banishment of the past his old fiancée had dragged from its sepulchre. Bury it again and forget it! "What's all the noise about? What's all the chatterboxing?" For the good gentleman always imputes to his offspring a volubility and a plethora of language far in excess of any meaning it conveys. His own attitude, he implies, is one of weighty consideration and temperate but forcible judgment.
"What's the chatterboxing?" says the beautiful daughter, who kisses him on both sides—and she and her skirts and her voice fill the discreet country-house to the brim, and make its owner insignificant. "What's the chatterboxing, indeed? Why,—it's good news for a silly old daddy! That's what it is. Now come in and I'll sit on his knee and tell him." And by the time Adrian has felt his way to the drawing-room, the good news has been sprung upon his father by a Moenad who has dragged off her head-gear—so as not to scratch—and flung it on the sofa. And a tide of released black hair has burst loose about him. And—oh dear!—how that garden of auld lang syne has vanished!
It behoves a Baronet and a J.P., however, to bring all this excitement down to the level of mature consideration. "Well—well—well—well!" says he. "Now let's have it all over again. Begin at the beginning. You and your brother were walking up Pratchet's Lane. What were you doing in Pratchet's Lane?"
"Walking up it. You can only walk up it or down it. Very well. We were just by the big holly-tree....
"Which big holly-tree? One—thing—at—a time!"
"Don't interrupt! There is only one big holly-tree. Now you know! Well! Ply ran on in front because he caught sight of Miss Scatcherd....
"Easy—easy—easy! Where was Miss Scatcherd?"
"In front, of course! Ply dotes on Miss Scatcherd, although she's forty-seven."