“When the rose is twenty-one,” said I, “and this luncheon party which I heard you prophesying the other day comes off, what sort of godfather will you be then, do you think?”
“What sort am I now, for that matter?” he asked idly.
“Ah, well, then,” said I boldly; “yes! What sort are you now?”
When one is past seventy and may say what one pleases one is not accountable for any virtue of daring.
He looked at me quickly but I did not meet his eyes. I was watching Mrs. Trempleau lay the apple boughs against her gown.
“Ah, pray don’t,” he besought. “You make me feel as if there were things around in the air waiting to see if I would do right or wrong with them.”
“There are,” said I, “if you want me to be disagreeable.”
“But I!” he said lightly. “What have I to decide? Whether to have elbow bits on the leaders for the coaching Thursday. Whether to give Eric his dinner party on the eighth or the nineteenth. Whether to risk the frou-frou figure at Miss Lillieblade’s cotillon. You don’t wish me to believe that anything in the air is concerned with how I am deciding those?”
“No,” said I with energy, “not in the air or on the earth or under the sea.”
“Ah, well, now,” he went on with conviction, and gave to the baby a finger of each hand—beautiful, idle, white fingers round which the baby’s curled and clung, “what can I do?” He put it to me with an air of great fairness.