His companion was visibly relieved. "That's right—let her remain so! I'll first take the house," said Clement Yule.
"Shall I go round with you?" Mr. Prodmore asked.
The young man's reflection was brief. "Thank you. I'd rather, on the whole, go round alone."
The old servant who had admitted the gentlemen came back at this crisis from the morning-room, looking from under a bent brow and with much limpid earnestness from one of them to the other. The one he first addressed had evidently, though quite unaware of it, inspired him with a sympathy from which he now took a hint. "There's tea on, sir!" he persuasively jerked as he passed the younger man.
The elder answered. "Then I'll join my daughter." He gained the morning-room door, whence he repeated with an appropriate gesture—that of offering proudly, with light, firm fingers, a flower of his own celebrated raising—his happy formula of Miss Prodmore's state. "The rose on its stem!" Scattering petals, diffusing fragrance, he thus passed out.
Chivers, meanwhile, had rather pointlessly settled once more in its place some small object that had not strayed; to whom Clement Yule,
