Mrs. Roberts: ‘Oh, never mind the state. You look perfectly well; and if you insist upon going, I shall know that you bear a grudge against Edward for not arresting him. Wait! We can put you in perfect order in just a second.’ She flies out of the room, and then comes swooping back with a needle and thread, a fresh white necktie, a handkerchief, and a hair-brush. ‘There! I can’t let you go to Edward’s dressing-room, because he’s there himself, and the children are in mine, and we’ve had to put the new maid in the guest-chamber—you are rather cramped in flats, that’s true; that’s the worst of them—but if you don’t mind having your toilet made in public, like the King of France—’
Bemis, entering into the spirit of it: ‘Not the least; but—’ He laughs, and drops back into his chair.
Mrs. Roberts, distributing the brush to young Mr. Bemis, and the tie to his wife, and dropping upon her knees before Mr. Bemis: ‘Now, Mrs. Lou, you just whip off that crumpled tie and whip on the fresh one, and, Mister Lou, you give his hair a touch, and I’ll have this torn button-hole mended before you can think.’ She seizes it and begins to sew vigorously upon it.
Mrs. Crashaw: ‘Agnes, you are the most ridiculously sensible woman in the country.’
Lawton, standing before the group, with his arms folded and his feet well apart, in an attitude of easy admiration: ‘The Wounded Adonis, attended by the Loves and Graces. Familiar Pompeiian fresco.’
Mrs. Roberts, looking around at him: ‘I don’t see a great many Loves.’
Lawton: ‘She ignores us, Mrs. Crashaw. And after what you’ve just said!’
Mrs. Roberts: ‘Then why don’t you do something?’
Lawton: ‘The Loves never do anything—in frescoes. They stand round and sympathise. Besides, we are waiting to administer an anæsthetic. But what I admire in this subject even more than the activity of the Graces is the serene dignity of the Adonis. I have seen my old friend in many trying positions, but I never realised till now all the simpering absurdity, the flattered silliness, the senile coquettishness, of which his benign countenance was capable.’
Mrs. Roberts: ‘Don’t mind him a bit, Mr. Bemis; it’s nothing but—’