into gay laughter, which, somehow, I did not quite like: and turning to her husband, she said: "Do you remember Davy Curzon? He was such a silly old pet. Lor'! I'd quite forgot him!"
"Lucky Davy," said the gentleman, smiling at me.
"And he was so ridiculously poor," she went on, "I remember he ruined himself once to buy me a pair of cream-coloured ponies, and a lapis-lazuli necklace. And I daresay he's fat now!"
"He is not," I retorted stoutly. "He's thin. He's had the fever."
"Again?" she cried. "He had it when I knew him—badly too. Who did he marry?"
"A Miss Vicars," replied her husband. "Good family. A screaming beauty too. Other two boys look like her."
But the lady had now, it seemed, no interest in the other two boys. The Seraph was deposed from his place on the divan to make room for me; and the lady begged me to give her a kiss, just for old times' sake. Yet, somehow, I did not quite like it, for I felt that she was making fun of my father, the hero of my dreams.
Meanwhile, the other children, unchided, were making things lively in their own way. Mops and the boys were eating dates from a bowl and
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