"Guardy, you must try our new liqueur. Jock, you awful boy, get up and bring Guardy a glass."The boy Jock approached the tea-table, took up a glass, put it to his eye and filled it rapidly.
"You horrible boy, you could see that glass has been used."In a high round voice rather like an angel's, Jock answered:
"All right, Mother; I'll get rid of it," and rapidly swallowing the yellow liquor, took up another glass.
Mrs. Larne laughed.
"What am I to do with him?"
A loud shriek prevented a response. Phyllis, who had taken her brother by the ear to lead him to the door, let him go to clasp her injured self.
Bob Pillin went hastening towards her; and following the young man with her chin, Mrs. Larne said, smiling:
"Aren't those children awful? He's such a nice fellow. We like him so much, Guardy."The old man grinned. So she was ****** up to that young pup!
Rosamund Larne, watching him, murmured:
"Oh! Guardy, you're as bad as Jock. He takes after you terribly.
Look at the shape of his head. Jock, come here!" The innocent boy approached; with his girlish complexion, his flowery blue eyes, his perfect mouth, he stood before his mother like a large cherub. And suddenly he blew his ocarina in a dreadful manner. Mrs. Larne launched a box at his ears, and receiving the wind of it he fell prone.
"That's the way he behaves. Be off with you, you awful boy. I want to talk to Guardy."The boy withdrew on his stomach, and sat against the wall cross-legged, fixing his innocent round eyes on old Heythorp. Mrs. Larne sighed.
"Things are worse and worse, Guardy. I'm at my wits' end to tide over this quarter. You wouldn't advance me a hundred on my new story? I'm sure to get two for it in the end."The old man shook his head.
"I've done something for you and the children," he said. "You'll get notice of it in a day or two; ask no questions.""Oh! Guardy! Oh! you dear!" And her gaze rested on Bob Pillin, leaning over the piano, where Phyllis again sat.
Old Heythorp snorted. "What are you cultivating that young gaby for?
She mustn't be grabbed up by any fool who comes along."Mrs. Larne murmured at once:
"Of course, the dear gairl is much too young. Phyllis, come and talk to Guardy!"When the girl was installed beside him on the sofa, and he had felt that little thrill of warmth the proximity of youth can bring, he said:
"Been a good girl?"
She shook her head.
"Can't, when Jock's not at school. Mother can't pay for him this term."Hearing his name, the boy Jock blew his ocarina till Mrs. Larne drove him from the room, and Phyllis went on:
"He's more awful than anything you can think of. Was my dad at all like him, Guardy? Mother's always so mysterious about him. Isuppose you knew him well."
Old Heythorp, incapable of confusion, answered stolidly:
"Not very."
"Who was his father? I don't believe even mother knows.""Man about town in my day."
"Oh! your day must have been jolly. Did you wear peg-top trousers, and dundreary's?"Old Heythorp nodded.
"What larks! And I suppose you had lots of adventures with opera dancers and gambling. The young men are all so good now." Her eyes rested on Bob Pillin. "That young man's a perfect stick of goodness."Old Heythorp grunted.
"You wouldn't know how good he was," Phyllis went on musingly, "unless you'd sat next him in a tunnel. The other day he had his waist squeezed and he simply sat still and did nothing. And then when the tunnel ended, it was Jock after all, not me. His face was--Oh! ah! ha! ha! Ah! ha!" She threw back her head, displaying all her white, round throat. Then edging near, she whispered:
"He likes to pretend, of course, that he's fearfully lively. He's promised to take mother and me to the theatre and supper afterwards.
Won't it be scrummy! Only, I haven't anything to go in."Old Heythorp said: "What do you want? Irish poplin?"Her mouth opened wide: "Oh! Guardy! Soft white satin!""How many yards'll go round you?"
"I should think about twelve. We could make it ourselves. You are a chook!"A scent of hair, like hay, enveloped him, her lips bobbed against his nose,--and there came a feeling in his heart as when he rolled the first sip of a special wine against his palate. This little house was a rumty-too affair, her mother was a humbug, the boy a cheeky young rascal, but there was a warmth here he never felt in that big house which had been his wife's and was now his holy daughter's. And once more he rejoiced at his day's work, and the success of his breach of trust, which put some little ground beneath these young feet, in a hard and unscrupulous world. Phyllis whispered in his ear:
"Guardy, do look; he will stare at me like that. Isn't it awful--like a boiled rabbit?"
Bob Pillin, attentive to Mrs. Larne, was gazing with all his might over her shoulder at the girl. The young man was moonstruck, that was clear! There was something almost touching in the stare of those puppy dog's eyes. And he thought 'Young beggar--wish I were his age!' The utter injustice of having an old and helpless body, when your desire for enjoyment was as great as ever! They said a man was as old as he felt! Fools! A man was as old as his legs and arms, and not a day younger. He heard the girl beside him utter a discomfortable sound, and saw her face cloud as if tears were not far off; she jumped up, and going to the window, lifted the little dog and buried her face in its brown and white fur. Old Heythorp thought: 'She sees that her humbugging mother is using her as a decoy.' But she had come back, and the little dog, rolling its eyes horribly at the strange figure on the sofa, in a desperate effort to escape succeeded in reaching her shoulder, where it stayed perched like a cat, held by one paw and trying to back away into space. Old Heythorp said abruptly:
"Are you very fond of your mother?"
"Of course I am, Guardy. I adore her."
"H'm! Listen to me. When you come of age or marry, you'll have a hundred and twenty a year of your own that you can't get rid of.