Part 11

BEMIS, entering into the spirit of it: ‘Not the least; but—’ He laughs, and drops back into his chair.

MRS. ROBERTS, distributing the brush to young Mr. Bemis, and the tie to his wife, and dropping upon her knees before Mr. Bemis: ‘Now, Mrs. Lou, you just whip off that crumpled tie and whip on the fresh one, and, Mister Lou, you give his hair a touch, and I’ll have this torn button-hole mended before you can think.’ She seizes it and begins to sew vigorously upon it.

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Agnes, you are the most ridiculously sensible woman in the country.’

LAWTON, standing before the group, with his arms folded and his feet well apart, in an attitude of easy admiration: ‘The Wounded Adonis, attended by the Loves and Graces. Familiar Pompeiian fresco.’

MRS. ROBERTS, looking around at him: ‘I don’t see a great many Loves.’

LAWTON: ‘She ignores us, Mrs. Crashaw. And after what you’ve just said!’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Then why don’t you do something?’

LAWTON: ‘The Loves never do anything—in frescoes. They stand round and sympathise. Besides, we are waiting to administer an anæsthetic. But what I admire in this subject even more than the activity of the Graces is the serene dignity of the Adonis. I have seen my old friend in many trying positions, but I never realised till now all the simpering absurdity, the flattered silliness, the senile coquettishness, of which his benign countenance was capable.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Don’t mind him a bit, Mr. Bemis; it’s nothing but—’

LAWTON: ‘Pure envy. I own it.’

BEMIS: ‘All right, Lawton. Wait till—’

MRS. ROBERTS, making a final stitch, snapping off the thread, and springing to her feet, all in one: ‘There, have you finished, Mr. and Mrs. Lou? Well, then, take this lace handkerchief, and draw it down from his neck and pin it in his waistcoat, and you have—’

LAWTON, as Mr. Bemis rises to his feet: ‘A Gentleman of the Old School. Bemis, you look like a miniature of yourself by Malbone. Rather flattered, but—recognisable.’

BEMIS, with perfectly recovered gaiety: ‘Go on, go on, Lawton. I can understand your envy. I can pity it.’

LAWTON: ‘Could you forgive Roberts for not capturing the garotter?’

BEMIS: ‘Yes, I could. I could give the garotter his liberty, and present him with an admission to the Provident Woodyard, where he could earn an honest living for his family.’

LAWTON, compassionately: ‘You are pretty far gone, Bemis. Really, I think somebody ought to go for Roberts.’

MRS. ROBERTS, innocently: ‘Yes, indeed! Why, what in the world can be keeping him?’ A nursemaid enters and beckons Mrs. Roberts to the door with a glance. She runs to her; they whisper; and then Mrs. Roberts, over her shoulder: ‘That ridiculous great boy of mine says he can’t go to sleep unless I come and kiss him good-night.’

LAWTON: ‘Which ridiculous great boy, I wonder?—Roberts, or Campbell? But I didn’t know they had gone to bed!’

MRS. BEMIS: ‘You are too bad, papa! You know it’s little Neddy.’

MRS. ROBERTS, vanishing: ‘Oh, I don’t mind his nonsense, Lou. I’ll fetch them both back with me.’

LAWTON, after making a melodramatic search for concealed listeners at the doors: ‘Now, friends, I have a revelation to make in Mrs. Roberts’s absence. I have found out the garotter—the assassin.’

ALL THE OTHERS: ‘What!’

LAWTON: ‘He has been secured—’

MRS. CRASHAW, severely: ‘Well, I’m very glad of it.’

YOUNG BEMIS: ‘By the police?’

MRS. BEMIS, incredulously: ‘Papa!’

BEMIS: ‘But there were several of them. Have they all been arrested?’