In the Mist of the Mountains Part 26

He looked at her gratefully. She was as good-tempered as ever; not in the least fl.u.s.tered or put out.

"Jove, K," he said, "I should be a fool to marry. For real solid satisfaction give me a sister."

"Why?" said Kate amusedly. "Do you think your wife wouldn't pack your bag for you?"

He considered Bee for a moment in a wifely, packing att.i.tude, then Dora.

"Not all wives," he said a little vaguely. "At all events they'd pout and worry to know why I was going and what the horrid telegram was about, and when was I coming back, and where was I going to stay--and so on till the train was lost. And look at you--not a word!"

"Oh, I should have asked you fast enough--when you came back," said Kate, "and that is the same thing."

"No, faith, it's not, Kate; I'd have had leisure to invent my own account by that time," said Hugh.

"Very well," said Kate, "next time I shall pout."

Hugh struck a match.

"I can tell you now, as there's time. I felt I wasn't making money fast enough by books for our old age, K, and I've been speculating a bit.

It's helped to worry me and keep me from work lately. But the shares are rising and I'm going down to be on the spot."

Then the wagonette drove up and he seized his bag and his hat, and Kate ran after him to the gate with his pipe.

When Miss Bibby heard from the children that he had gone away, she sighed deeply. And at night when the little ones were all asleep, and Anna, her face smeared with Pauline's sunburn cream, her hair damp with the preparation bought to improve m.u.f.fie's thin hair, and her teeth as.h.i.+ne with the family tooth powder, was on her way to bed, and the mist had crept up to the windows and wrapped everything in its eerie shroud, Miss Bibby sighed again.

CHAPTER XIX

MAX RUNS AMUCK

Greenways was overwhelmed with horror. It felt it ought to draw a veil of mist round its face and shrink from the public gaze instead of standing there brazenly smiling as usual amid its trees and flowers and pretending it was the abode of innocence and content.

Miss Bibby was extremely upset, sufficiently so to be nearly helpless in the crisis. The little girls whispered together with horrified and excited eyes and more than inclined to a theory that nothing short of a cable to New Zealand recalling their parents could adequately deal with the present situation.

Anna, who had quarrelled with her baker, said she was not in the least surprised, for men and boys were all the same, downright black at heart.

But Max stood fast in his iniquity.

Max, four-year old Max--whose "trousers" did not measure three inches in the inner seam of the leg--Max, who was not yet entirely initiated into the difficulties of speech, had broken forth into "language!"

No one knew where he could have possibly heard the hair-raising phrase.

Certainly there was the gardener, Blake, about the premises who, being of the downright black-hearted s.e.x, might have let fall the words Max had evidently garnered and laid by with such care and accuracy until occasion offered.

But he was so surly and monosyllabic a man that the children gave him the widest of berths, and therefore that theory was unlikely.

Anna aspersed the character of Larkin. A boy with hair that colour, she maintained, must be subject to periodical explosions, and it was probably during one of them that Max had secreted his bit of dynamite.

But the little girls gave Larkin the warmest testimonials. In all the time they had known him he had never been guilty of anything stronger than "My jiggery!"

It all began with a bib at breakfast time.

When Anna would have tied it around Max's neck, as she or some other person in her position had done for years, he jerked his head suddenly aside. "Take it away," he said.

"But, darling," said Miss Bibby, who was serving out the porridge, "you must have your bib on; don't be naughty. Look, it's the pretty one with Jack Sprat on it. Tie it on, Anna."

Max ducked skilfully just as Anna brought the tapes together.

"Just look at 'im," said the girl.

"Come, come, Max," said Miss Bibby, "you don't want to spoil that pretty coat with your porridge. Why, it's your new coat with a pocket in! Let Anna tie it now, quickly."

Again Anna essayed her task. Max held still till the square of huckaback portraying the economic existence of Jack Sprat and his wife was well beneath his chin, and the tapes gathered once more up into Anna's hands.

Then he gave a movement like a plunging horse, seized the offending article and flung it with all his force across the table where it fell and floated upon the milk m.u.f.fie had poured over her porridge.

"Very well, Anna," said Miss Bibby, "take the bib away and you need not wait. Master Max does not want any breakfast."

This was quite true, for Master Max had quite satisfied his morning appet.i.te by a surrept.i.tious ten minutes at the mulberry tree while the three little girls were having their hair brushed.

"Can I go?" he said eagerly.

"You mean, may I?" Miss Bibby said mechanically.

"Well, may I?"

"Certainly not. You will sit quite still as a gentleman should when ladies are still eating."

Max cast a lowering glance at the ladies.

"Well, make her hurry," he said; "look at her taking anover lot of leam." He glared at m.u.f.fie.

"I shall take six lots of cream, if I choose," said m.u.f.fie. "I've got to put something on to take away the taste of your horrid dirty bib."

"It was a clean one, m.u.f.fie, or I should have pa.s.sed you a fresh plateful," said Miss Bibby; "at the same time that does not excuse Max for his ill-behaviour. Max, before I can overlook your conduct you must apologize to m.u.f.fie and to Anna."

m.u.f.fie looked important; she rather enjoyed being apologized to.

Max sat very square on the big books of his chair; possibly their presence beneath him encouraged his rebellion by reminding him that until he took a firm stand against it a month or two ago a high chair had been considered fitted to his dignity.

"I've done wiv bibs," he announced, and he looked the whole table fairly in the face.

Pauline and m.u.f.fie and Lynn giggled a little. They had begun to recognize vaguely that Max was not exactly as they were.

When he stood with his little legs planted far apart and his little hands thrust deep in his knickerbocker pockets, and his little head c.o.c.ked on one side, some subtle breath of a spirit, masculine and essentially opposed to their own, was wafted towards them.

"I've done wiv bibs," he repeated.