"Details, please," said I.
Little Miss Phyllis shook her head.
"And left me at the door."
"Was it still foggy?" I asked.
"Yes. Or he wouldn"t have--"
"Now what did he--?"
"Come to the door, Mr. Carter," said Miss Phyllis, with obvious wariness. "Oh, and it was such fun!"
"I"m sure it was."
"No, I mean when we were examined in the lectures. I bought the local paper, you know, and read it up, and I got top marks easily, and Miss Green wrote to mother to say how well I had done."
"It all ends most satisfactorily," I observed.
"Yes, didn"t it?" said little Miss Phyllis.
Mrs. Hilary was grave again.
"And you never told your mother, Phyllis?" she asked.
"N-no, Cousin Mary," said Miss Phyllis.
I rose and stood with my back to the fire. Little Miss Phyllis took up her sock again, but a smile still played about the corners of her mouth.
"I wonder," said I, looking up at the ceiling, "what happened at the door." Then, as no one spoke, I added:
"Pooh! I know what happened at the door."
"I"m not going to tell you anything more," said Miss Phyllis.
"But I should like to hear it in your own--"
Miss Phyllis was gone! She had suddenly risen and run from the room!
"It did happen at the door," said I.
"Fancy Phyllis!" mused Mrs. Hilary.
"I hope," said I, "that it will be a lesson to you."
"I shall have to keep my eye on her," said Mrs. Hilary.
"You can"t do it," said I in easy confidence. I had no fear of little Miss Phyllis being done out of her recreations. "Meanwhile," I pursued, "the important thing is this: my parallel is obvious and complete."
"There"s not the least likeness," said Mrs. Hilary sharply.
"As a hundred pounds are to a shilling, so is the Grand Prix to the young man opposite," I observed, taking my hat, and holding out my hand to Mrs. Hilary.
"I am very angry with you," she said. "You"ve made the child think there was nothing wrong in it."
"Oh! Nonsense," said I. "Look how she enjoyed telling it."
Then, not heeding Mrs. Hilary, I launched into an apostrophe.
"O, divine House Opposite!" I cried. "Charming House Opposite! If only I might dwell forever in the House Opposite!"
"I haven"t the least notion of what you mean," remarked Mrs. Hilary, stiffly. "I suppose it"s something silly--or worse."
I looked at her in some puzzle.
"Have you no longing for the House Opposite?" I asked.
Mrs. Hilary looked at me. Her eyes ceased to be absolutely blank. She put her arm through Hilary"s and answered gently--
"I don"t want the House Opposite."
"Ah," said I, giving my hat a brush, "but maybe you remember the House--when it was Opposite?"
Mrs. Hilary, one arm still in Hilary"s, gave me her hand. She blushed and smiled.
"Well," said she, "it was your fault; so I won"t scold Phyllis."
"No, don"t my dear," said Hilary, with a laugh.
As for me, I went downstairs, and, in absence of mind, bade my cabman drive to the House Opposite. But I have never got there.
A QUICK CHANGE
"Why not go with Archie?" I asked, spreading out my hands.
"It will be dull enough, anyhow," said Dolly, fretfully. "Besides, it"s awfully bourgeois to go to the theater with one"s husband."
"Bourgeois," I observed, "is an epithet which the riffraff apply to what is respectable, and the aristocracy to what is decent."
"But it"s not a nice thing to be, all the same," said Dolly, who is impervious to the most penetrating remark.
"You"re in no danger of it," I hastened to a.s.sure her.
"How should you describe me, then?" she asked, leaning forward, with a smile.
"I should describe you, Lady Mickleham," I replied discreetly, "as being a little lower than the angels."