"_He_ isn"t rude and ridiculous, eh?" said Sam gruffly.
"Oh, no. His manners are perfect, and he has such a natural dignity,"
she went on, looking affectionately across the table at the heir of the Mortimers, who, finding Mr. Bennett"s medical confidences a trifle fatiguing, was yawning broadly, and absently balancing his wine gla.s.s on a fork.
"Besides," said Billie in a soft and dreamy voice, "we are engaged to be married!"
-- 3
Sam didn"t care, of course. We, who have had the privilege of a glimpse into his iron soul, know that. He was not in the least upset by the news--just surprised. He happened to be raising his gla.s.s at the moment, and he registered a certain amount of restrained emotion by snapping the stem in half and shooting the contents over the tablecloth: but that was all.
"Good heavens, Sam!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Sir Mallaby, aghast. His wine gla.s.ses were an old and valued set.
Sam blushed as red as the stain on the cloth.
"Awfully sorry, father! Don"t know how it happened."
"Something must have given you a shock," suggested Billie kindly.
The old retainer rallied round with napkins, and Sir Mallaby, who was just about to dismiss the affair with the polished ease of a good host, suddenly became aware of the activities of Bream. That young man, on whose dreamy calm the accident had made no impression whatever, had successfully established the equilibrium of the gla.s.s and the fork, and was now cautiously inserting beneath the latter a section of a roll, the whole forming a charming picture in still life.
"If that gla.s.s is in your way...." said Sir Mallaby as soon as he had hitched up his drooping jaw sufficiently to enable him to speak. He was beginning to feel that he would be lucky if he came out of this dinner-party with a mere remnant of his precious set.
"Oh, Sir Mallaby," said Billie, casting an adoring glance at the juggler, "you needn"t be afraid that Bream will drop it. _He_ isn"t clumsy! He is wonderful at that sort of thing, simply wonderful! I think it"s so splendid," said Billie, "when men can do things like that. I"m always trying to get Bream to do some of his tricks for people, but he"s so modest, he won"t."
"Refreshingly different," Sir Mallaby considered, "from the average drawing-room entertainer."
"Yes," said Billie emphatically. "I think the most terrible thing in the world is a man who tries to entertain when he can"t. Did I tell you about the man on board ship, father, at the ship"s concert? Oh, it was the most awful thing you ever saw. Everybody was talking about it!" She beamed round the table, and there was a note of fresh girlish gaiety in her voice. "This man got up to do an imitation of somebody--n.o.body knows to this day who it was meant to be--and he came into the saloon and directly he saw the audience he got stage fright. He just stood there gurgling and not saying a word, and then suddenly his nerve failed him altogether and he turned and tore out of the room like a rabbit. He absolutely ran! And he hadn"t said a word! It was the most ridiculous exhibition I"ve ever seen!"
The anecdote went well. Of course there will always be a small minority in any audience which does not appreciate a funny story, and there was one in the present case. But the bulk of the company roared with laughter.
"Do you mean," cried Sir Mallaby, choking, "the poor idiot just stood there dumb?"
"Well, he made a sort of yammering noise," said Billie, "but that only made him look sillier."
"Deuced good!" chuckled Sir Mallaby.
"Funniest thing I ever heard in my life!" gurgled Mr. Bennett, swallowing a digestive capsule.
"May have been half-witted," suggested Mr. Mortimer.
Sam leaned across the table with a stern set face. He meant to change the conversation if he had to do it with a crowbar.
"I hear you have taken a house in the country, Mr. Mortimer," he said.
"Yes," said Mr. Mortimer. He turned to Sir Mallaby. "We have at last succeeded in persuading your sister, Mrs. Hignett, to let us rent her house for the summer."
Sir Mallaby gasped.
"Windles! You don"t mean to tell me that my sister has let you have Windles!"
Mr. Mortimer nodded triumphantly.
"Yes. I had completely resigned myself to the prospect of spending the summer in some other house, when yesterday I happened to run into your nephew, young Eustace Hignett, on the street, and he said he was just coming round to see me about that very thing. To cut a long story short, he said that it would be all right and that we could have the house."
Mr. Mortimer took a sip of burgundy. "He"s a curious boy, young Hignett. Very nervous in his manner."
"Chronic dyspepsia," said Mr. Bennett authoritatively, "I can tell it at a glance."
"Is Windles a very lovely place, Sir Mallaby?" asked Billie.
"Charming. Quite charming. Not large, of course, as country houses go.
Not a castle, I mean, with hundreds of acres of park land. But nice and compact and comfortable and very picturesque."
"We do not require a large place," said Mr. Mortimer. "We shall be quite a small party. Bennett and myself, Wilhelmina, Bream...."
"Don"t forget," said Billie, "that you have promised to invite Jane Hubbard down there."
"Ah, yes. Wilhelmina"s friend, Miss Hubbard. She is coming. That will be all, except young Hignett himself."
"Hignett!" cried Mr. Bennett.
"Mr. Hignett!" exclaimed Billie.
There was an almost imperceptible pause before Mr. Mortimer spoke again, and for an instant the demon of embarra.s.sment hovered, unseen but present, above the dinner table. Mr. Bennett looked sternly at Billie; Billie turned a shade pinker and gazed at the tablecloth; Bream started nervously. Even Mr. Mortimer seemed robbed for a moment of his legal calm.
"I forgot to tell you that," he said. "Yes, one of the stipulations--to which I personally was perfectly willing to agree--was that Eustace Hignett was to remain on the premises during our tenancy. Such a clause in the agreement was, I am quite aware, unusual, and, had the circ.u.mstances been other than they were, I would have had a good deal to say about it. But we wanted the place, and we couldn"t get it except by agreeing, so I agreed. I"m sure you will think that I acted rightly, Bennett, considering the peculiar circ.u.mstances."
"Well," said Mr. Bennett reluctantly, "I certainly did want that house...."
"And we couldn"t have had it otherwise," said Mr. Mortimer, "so that is all there is to it."
"Well, it need make no difference to you," said Sir Mallaby. "I am sure you will find my nephew Eustace most un.o.btrusive. He may even be an entertaining companion. I believe he has a nice singing voice. With that and the juggling of our friend here and my sister"s late husband"s orchestrion, you will have no difficulty in amusing yourselves during the evenings. You remember the orchestrion, Sam?" said Sir Mallaby, on whom his son"s silence had been weighing rather heavily for some time.
"Yes," said Sam, and returned to the silence once more.
"The late Mr. Hignett had it put in. He was very fond of music. It"s a thing you turn on by pressing a b.u.t.ton in the wall," continued Sir Mallaby. "How you stop it, I don"t know. When I was down there last it never seemed to stop. You mustn"t miss the orchestrion!"
"I certainly shall," said Mr. Bennett decidedly. "Music of that description happens to be the one thing which jars unendurably on my nerves. My nervous system is thoroughly out of tune."
"So is the orchestrion," said Sir Mallaby. "I remember once when I was down there...."
"I hope you will come down there again, Sir Mallaby," said Mr. Mortimer, "during our occupancy of the house. And you, too," he said, addressing Sam.
"I am afraid," said Sam frigidly, "that my time will be very much occupied for the next few months. Thank you very much," he added, after a moment"s pause.
"Sam"s going to work," said Sir Mallaby.
"Yes," said Sam with dark determination. "Work is the only thing in life that matters!"