"Hand me up another trumpet then, Miss Taylor, will you please?"
Mary continued to decorate the tree, whistling a little tune below her breath. All the time she was conscious of the schoolmaster's brooding eyes, watching her from below.
They finished the tree.
Mary was putting on her fur and gloves when Coast again approached her.
"Ah, Mrs. Robson, you are ready I see. Perhaps if you would step into my house we could settle that little affair more comfortably."
Comfortably! As if it were possible to settle any little affair with Coast "comfortably"! And certainly his house would not add to the comfort of the settling.
Mary, following Coast across the asphalt playground, wondered for the hundredth time at the weird phantasy of the too enterprising Victorian architect, who, fired by the inspiration of the Albert Memorial, had become a devotee of Gothic ornateness. She regarded its painted gables, twisted chimneys and sunless windows gloomily and decided that she was in for an unpleasant half-hour.
Mr. Coast's sitting-room was as unfriendly as his manner. Even the cuckoo clock, swinging its one wooden leg, and crouching against the wall like a hobgoblin, proclaimed twelve o'clock with a forbidding voice. Mary sat down and prepared for the worst.
The room was no kinder to Coast than it was to Mary. He shifted his weight from one foot to the order and sought for inspiration.
He was acutely miserable. Mrs. Robson, quietly sitting with folded hands inspecting the woolwork mats, the wax flowers under their glass cover, and the "Everlastings" in the mantelpiece vase, seemed completely mistress of the situation.