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Mrs. Reade declared he should take to “byking.” That would warm him; there was nothing in the world like it.”Indeed unless it maims you for life, it cures every evil that flesh is heir to.”

“But I suppose the chances are in favour of the maiming?” West asked her.

She laughed hilariously at this, and though she was certainly vulgar, as Catterson had complained, West could not help liking her. He always did like the women who laughed at his little jokes. Mrs. Catterson never laughed at them.

Nettie wondered why on earth Jack could not have had tea ready, pulled violently at the bell, and began to examine some patterns of silk she had brought home with her, for the selection of an evening gown. Her lap was presently filled with little, oblong pieces of black and coloured brocades.

“The green is exquisite, isn’t it, Mimi?” she appealed to her friend, “but do you think it would suit me? Wouldn’t it make me look too pale?

The heliotrope is lovely too, but then I had a gown last year almost that very shade. People would say I had only had it cleaned or turned. Perhaps, after all, I had better have black? I’ve not had a black frock for a long time, and it’s always so smart-looking, isn’t it?”

Mrs. Reade thought that in Nettie’s place she should choose the green, and have it made up with myrtle velvet and cream guipure. An animated discussion of dressmaking details began, during which the men sat, perforce, silent.

Gladys, meanwhile, had come over to the table on which the chocolates lay, and now stood industriously picking open the paper.

Catterson presently caught sight of this.

“Gladys!” he exclaimed, with the sharp irritability o
f ill-health.

She had just popped a fat bon-bon into her mouth, and she remained petrified for a moment by so unaccustomed a thing as a rebuke. Then for convenience sake, she took the sweet out again in her thumb and finger, and burst into sobs of anger and surprise.

Nettie was equally surprised and angry.”What are you thinking of, Jack, frightening the poor child by shouting at her like that?”

“But did you see what she was doing, my dear, meddling with West’s property?”

“Mr. West shouldn’t leave his sweets about on the table if he doesn’t want the child to have them. Naturally, she thought they were for her.”

“Not at all. She knew they were for Cyril. She heard West say so.”

“After Cyril’s behaviour to me this morning I certainly shall not allow him to have them. And I don’t approve of sweets anyway. It ruins the children’s teeth. I wish Mr. West wouldn’t bring them so often.”

This was sufficiently ungracious, and West’s answer was sufficiently foolish; “Perhaps you wish I wouldn’t bring myself so often either?” said he.

“I’ve no doubt we could manage to get on just as well without you,” she retorted, and there were worlds of insult concentrated in the tone.

The only effectual answer would have been immediate departure, but consideration for Catterson held West hesitant. It is always because of their affection for the husband that the wife finds it so particularly easy, and perhaps so agreeable, to insult his friends. She offers them their choice between perpetual banishment and chunks of humble-pie.

Catterson put an end to the situation himself.

“Let’s get away out of this, West,” he said, with flushed cheeks and shaking voice, “come down to my study.”

Here, the change of atmosphere brought on a fit of coughing to which West listened with a serrement de coeur. In his mind’s eye he saw Catterson again, vividly, as he had been a few years back; very gay and light-hearted, full of pranks and tricks. Always restless, always talking, always in tip-top spirits; when he fell in love, finding expression for the emotion in the whistling and singing of appropriate love-ditties, the music-hall love-ditties of the day.