"French people always loathe tea, my dear," laughed the Duchess; "they
take it when they have colds, as we take quinine."
Miss Letchworth, who had been three times to Paris for a week at a time,
looked up from her embroidery. "Oh, _Duchess_! People of our class often
drink it," she protested, the only tea she had ever consumed in Paris
being that of her hotel or of Columbins, "don't they, mossoo?"
Joyselle's eyes drew down at the corners and he gave his big moustache a
martial, upward twist. "Ask others, mademoiselle," he retorted wickedly.
"I am not of your class!"
It was brutal, and there was a short silence. Brigit was annoyed. Last
night she had hoped for one of his outbursts, but now that it had come
she was ashamed for him. And she shivered as she realised that this
shame was a serious sign.
"Horrid speech," she remarked, looking into the teapot she had forgotten
to fill with water, "isn't it, Théo?"
But Théo only laughed and shrugged his shoulders. His father was his
father, and except in little matters, such as satin and too flamboyant
ties, not to be even mentally criticised.
"But it is true, my dear," continued Joyselle, the mischief suddenly
gone from his face, a shrewd look of inquiry taking its place. "You are
going to marry into a peasant family, you know." Another change of mood!
He was severe now and disapproving.
She held up her head. "No one could call Théo a peasant, could they,
Duchess?"
Joyselle understood, and with bewildering rapidity again changed.
"Bravo!" he cried, laughing heartily. "You are marrying the _son_, you
mean, not the father. _C'est vrai, c'est vrai!_"
His utter unconsciousness was a great blessing, no doubt, but at that
moment it nearly maddened her. Was he blind?
Apparently he was, as he drank some mineral water and talked to the
Duchess.
The arrival of Lady Brinsley's poor dear Mr. Smith, the vicar, was the
next mild event of the day, and as his head too was filled with coals
and blankets, the story of the abominable coal-dealer had again to be
listened to and lamented over.
"The very worst coals I ever saw in my life, positively, are they not,
Lady Brinsley?"
"Eh, yes, Mr. Smith, quite too shocking. Nothing but dust, Duchess,
positively."
"We are all dust," returned the Duchess, who was whispering to Joyselle
about the Grand Duchess Anastasia-Katherine, _dans le temps_. "Oh, no,
we are all worms, aren't we?"
"Positively, I _never_ saw such very inferior coals," went on the Vicar,
wondering what on earth she was talking about.
Brigit looked at him as he babbled on. He was a very thin man, who
always reminded her of a plucked bird. Soon he would ask her why he had
not had the pleasure of seeing her in church for so long. He would hope
that she had not had a cold.
He did both these things, poor man, for it was his _rôle_ in life always
to say and do the perniciously obvious.
It was a very trying hour, but at last, under the dutiful pretext of
going to look after her mother, Brigit escaped and flew to Tommy's room.
It was a strange apartment for a little boy, for it had been assigned to
him once when he was ill, as being sunny, and beyond his brass bedstead
and small boy hoards, contained nothing whatever that looked as if it
belonged to one of few years.
For it was hung in faded plum-coloured satin, the eighteenth-century
furniture was quaint and beautiful, and the narrow oval mirrors, set in
tarnished gilded frames like a frieze about its walls, presented to
Brigit's eye as she opened the door an infinite and bewildering number
of Tommies, bending studiously over a large sheet of writing-paper, that
he held on a book on his knees.
"Hello, Tommy, what are you up to?"
The boy looked up, his face full of ecstasy. "I say, Bick, he _will_!
He will help me learn to be a violinist! He's going to find a good
teacher for me, and then, when I have got over the first grind, you
know, he's going--oh, Bicky, darling--he's going to teach me himself, at
the same time. Isn't he an angel!"