in the child, nor thought of the father, nor resented the parenthood that was not his. For him the child was an individual. And in spite of his stern determination not to fall into the delusions of conceited parents, he could not help thinking that George was a remarkable child.
“Have you seen my horse?” asked George.
“Have I seen your horse? ... Oh! ... I’ve seen that you’ve left it lying about on the hall-table.”
“I put it there so that you’d see it,” George persuasively excused himself for the untidiness.
“Well, let’s inspect it,” Edwin forgave him, and picked up from the table a piece of cartridge-paper on which was a drawing of a great cart-horse with shaggy feet. It was a vivacious sketch.
“You’re improving,” said Edwin, judicially, but in fact much impressed. Surely few boys of ten could draw as well as that! The design was strangely more mature than certain quite infantile watercolours that Edwin had seen scarcely a year earlier.
“It’s rather good, isn’t it?” George suggested, lifting up his head so that he could just see over the edge of the paper which Edwin held at the level of his watch-chain.
“I’ve met worse. Where did you see this particular animal?”
“I saw him down near the Brewery this morning. But when I’m doing a horse, I see him on the paper before I begin to draw, and I just draw round him.”
Edwin thought:
“This kid is no ordinary kid.”
He said:
“Well, we’ll pin it up here. We’ll have a Royal Academy and hear what the public has to say.” He took a pin from under his waistcoat.
“That’s not level,” said George.
And when Edwin had readjusted the pin, George persisted boldly:
“That’s not level either.”
“It’s as level as it’s going to be. I expect you’ve been drawing horses instead of practising your piano.”
He looked down at the mysterious little boy, who lived always so much nearer to the earth’s surface than himself.
George nodded simply, and then scratched his head.
“I suppose if I don’t practise while I’m young I shall regret it in after life, shan’t I?”
“Who told you that?”
“It’s what Auntie Hamps said to me, I think... I say, uncle.”
“What’s up?”
“Is Mr. John coming to-night?”
“I suppose so. Why?”
“Oh, nothing.... I say, uncle.”
“That’s twice you’ve said it.”
The boy smiled.
“You know that piece in the Bible about if two of you shall agree on earth—?”
“What of it?” Edwin asked rather curtly, anticipating difficulties.
“I don’t think two boys would be enough, would they? Two grown-ups might. But I’m not so sure about two boys. You see in the very next verse it says two or three, gathered together.”
“Three might be more effective. It’s always as well to be on the safe side.”
“Could you pray for anything? A penknife, for instance?”
“Why not?”
“But could you?” George was a little impatient.
“Better ask your mother,” said Edwin, who was becoming self-conscious under the strain.
George exploded coarsely:
“Poh! It’s no good asking mother.”
Said Edwin:
“The great thing in these affairs is to know what you want, and to want it. Concentrate as hard as you can, a long time in advance. No use half wanting!”
“Well, there’s one thing that’s poz [positive]. I couldn’t begin to concentrate to-night.”
“Why not?”
“Who could?” George protested. “We’re all so nervous to-night, aren’t we, with this At Home business. And I know I never could concentrate in my best clothes.”
For Edwin the boy with his shocking candour had suddenly precipitated out of the atmosphere, as it were, the collective nervousness of the household, made it into a phenomenon visible, tangible, oppressive. And the household was no longer a collection of units, but an entity. A bell rang faintly in the kitchen, and the sound abraded his nerves. The first guests were on the threshold, and Hilda was late. He looked at the clock. Yes, she was late. The hour named in the invitations was already past. All day he had feared lest she should be late, and she was late. He looked at the glass of the front-door; but night had come, and it was opaque. Ada tripped into view and ran upstairs.
“Don’t you hear the front-door?” he stopped her flight.
“It was missis’s bell, sir.”
“Ah!” Respite!
Ada disappeared.
Then another ring! And no parlour-maid to answer the bell! Naturally! Naturally Hilda, forgetting something at the last moment, had taken the parlour-maid away precisely when the girl was needed! Oh! He had foreseen it! He could hear shuffling outside and could even distinguish forms through the glass—many forms. All the people converging from various streets upon the waiting nervousness of the household seemed to have arrived at once.
George moved impulsively towards the front-door.
“Where are you going?” Edwin asked roughly. “Come here. It’s not your place to open the door. Come with me in the drawing-room.”
It was no affair of Edwin’s, thought Edwin crossly and uncompromisingly, if guests were kept waiting at the front-door. It was Hilda’s affair; she was the mistress of the house, and the blame was hers.
At high speed Ada swept with streamers down the stairs, like a squirrel down the branch of a tree. And then came Hilda.
iii
She stood at the turn of the stairs, waiting while the front-door was opened. He and George could see her over and through the banisters. And at sight of her triumphant and happy air, all Edwin’s annoyance melted. He did not desire that it should melt, but it melted. She was late. He could not rely on her not to be late. In summoning the parlourmaid to her bedroom when the parlourmaid ought to have been on duty
