第46章

"My dear baby, how tiresome you've been! You have no business to take them bathing in the Sacred it's much too public. It was all right for you but most awkward for every one else. Do be more careful. You forget the place is growing half suburban.""I say, is anything on to-morrow week?"

"Not that I know of."

"Then I want to ask the Emersons up to Sunday tennis.""Oh, I wouldn't do that, Freddy, I wouldn't do that with all this muddle.""What's wrong with the court? They won't mind a bump or two, and I've ordered new balls.""I meant it's better not. I really mean it."He seized her by the elbows and humorously danced her up and down the passage. She pretended not to mind, but she could have screamed with temper. Cecil glanced at them as he proceeded to his toilet and they impeded Mary with her brood of hot-water cans. Then Mrs. Honeychurch opened her door and said: "Lucy, what a noise you're making! I have something to say to you. Did you say you had had a letter from Charlotte?" and Freddy ran away.

"Yes. I really can't stop. I must dress too.""How's Charlotte?"

"All right."

"Lucy!"

The unfortunate girl returned.

"You've a bad habit of hurrying away in the middle of one's sentences. Did Charlotte mention her boiler?""Her WHAT?"

"Don't you remember that her boiler was to be had out in October, and her bath cistern cleaned out, and all kinds of terrible to-doings?""I can't remember all Charlotte's worries," said Lucy bitterly.

"I shall have enough of my own, now that you are not pleased with Cecil."Mrs. Honeychurch might have flamed out. She did not. She said:

"Come here, old lady--thank you for putting away my bonnet--kiss me." And, though nothing is perfect, Lucy felt for the moment that her mother and Windy Corner and the Weald in the declining sun were perfect.

So the grittiness went out of life. It generally did at Windy Corner. At the last minute, when the social machine was clogged hopelessly, one member or other of the family poured in a drop of oil. Cecil despised their methods--perhaps rightly. At a11events, they were not his own.

Dinner was at half-past seven. Freddy gabbled the grace, and they drew up their heavy chairs and fell to. Fortunately, the men were hungry. Nothing untoward occurred until the pudding. Then Freddy said:

"Lucy, what's Emerson like?"

"I saw him in Florence," said Lucy, hoping that this would pass for a reply.

"Is he the clever sort, or is he a decent chap?""Ask Cecil; it is Cecil who brought him here.""He is the clever sort, like myself," said Cecil.

Freddy looked at him doubtfully.

"How well did you know them at the Bertolini?" asked Mrs.

Honeychurch.

"Oh, very slightly. I mean, Charlotte knew them even less than Idid."