'Confound it! 'said Bruce, as he flung himself into the taxi. 'Well! I've made a mistake for once in my life. I admit it. Of course, it's really Hamilton Gardens. Sorry. Yet somehow I'm rather glad Mitchell doesn't live in that house.'
'You are perfectly right,' said Edith: 'the bankruptcy of an old friend and colleague could be no satisfaction to any man.'
Hamilton Gardens was a gloomy little place, like a tenement building out of Marylebone Road. Bruce, in trying to ring the bell, unfortunately turned out all the electric light in the house, and was standing alone in despair in the dark when, fortunately the porter, who had been out to post a letter, ran back, and turned up the light again. … 'I shouldn't have thought they could play musical crambo here, 'he called out to Edith while he was waiting. 'And now isn't it odd? I have a funny kind of feeling that the right address is Hamilton House.'
'I suppose you're perfectly certain they don't live at a private idiot asylum?' Edith suggested doubtfully.
On inquiry it appeared the Mitchells did not live at Hamilton Gardens.
An idea occurred to Edith, and she asked for a directory.
The Winthrop Mitchells lived at Hamilton Terrace, St. John's Wood.
'At last!' said Bruce. 'Now we shall be too disgracefully late for the first time. But be perfectly at your ease, dear. Promise me that. Go in quite naturally.'
'How else can I go in?'
'I mean as if nothing had happened.'
'I think we'd better tell them what has happened,' said Edith; 'it will make them laugh. I hope they will have begun their dinner.'
'Surely they will have finished it.'
'Perhaps we may find them at their games!'
'Now, now, don't be bitter, Edith dear—never be bitter—life has its ups and downs. … Well! I'm rather glad, after all, that Mitchell doesn't live in that horrid little hole.'
'I'm sure you are,' said Edith; 'it could be no possible satisfaction to you to know that a friend and colleague of yours is either distressingly hard up or painfully penurious.'
They arrived at the house, but there were no lights, and no sign of life. The Mitchells lived here all right, but they were out. The parlourmaid explained. The dinner-party had been Saturday, the night before. …
'Strange,' said Bruce, as he got in again. 'I had a curious presentiment that something was going wrong about this dinner at the Mitchells'.'
'What dinner at the Mitchells'? There doesn't seem to be any.'
'Do you know,' Bruce continued his train of thought, 'I felt certain somehow that it would be a failure. Wasn't it odd? I often think I'm a pessimist, and yet look how well I'm taking it. I'm more like a fatalist—sometimes I hardly know what I am.'
'I could tell you what you are,' said Edith, 'but I won't, because now you must take me to the Carlton. We shall get there before it's closed.'
CHAPTER II
Opera Glasses
Whether to behave with some coolness to Mitchell, and be stand-offish, as though it had been all his fault, or to be lavishly apologetic, was the question. Bruce could not make up his mind which attitude to take. In a way, it was all the Mitchells' fault. They oughtn't to have given him a verbal invitation. It was rude, Bohemian, wanting in good form; it showed an absolute and complete ignorance of the most ordinary and elementary usages of society. It was wanting in common courtesy; really, when one came to think about it, it was an insult. On the other hand, technically, Bruce was in the wrong. Having accepted he ought to have turned up on the right night. It may have served them right (as he said), but the fact of going on the wrong night being a lesson to them seemed a little obscure. Edith found it difficult to see the point.
Then he had a more brilliant idea; to go into the office as cheerily as ever, and say to Mitchell pleasantly, 'We're looking forward to next Saturday, old chap,' pretending to have believed from the first that the invitation had been for the Saturday week; and that the dinner was still to come. …
This, Edith said, would have been excellent, provided that the parlourmaid hadn't told them that she and Bruce had arrived about a quarter to ten on Sunday evening and asked if the Mitchells had begun dinner. The chances against the servant having kept this curious incident to herself were almost too great.
After long argument and great indecision the matter was settled by a cordial letter from Mrs. Mitchell, asking them to dinner on the following Thursday, and saying she feared there had been some mistake. So that was all right.
Bruce was in good spirits again; he was pleased too, because he was going to the theatre that evening with Edith and Vincy, to see a play that he thought wouldn't be very good. He had almost beforehand settled what he thought of it, and practically what he intended to say.
But when he came in that evening he was overheard to have a strenuous and increasingly violent argument with Archie in the hall.
Edith opened the door and wanted to know what the row was about.
'Will you tell me, Edith, where your son learns such language? He keeps on worrying me to take him to the Zoological Gardens to see the—well—you'll hear what he says. The child's a perfect nuisance. Who put it into his head to want to go and see this animal? I was obliged to speak quite firmly to him about it.'
Edith was not alarmed that Bruce had been severe. She thought it much more likely that Archie had spoken very firmly to him. He was always strict with his father, and when he was good Bruce found fault with him. As soon as he grew really tiresome his father became abjectly apologetic.
Archie was called and came in, dragging his feet, and pouting, in tears that he was making a strenuous effort to encourage.
'You must be firm with him,' continued Bruce. 'Hang it! Good heavens!
Am I master in my own house or am I not?'
There was no reply to this rhetorical question.
He turned to Archie and said in a gentle, conciliating voice:
'Archie, old chap, tell your mother what it is you want to see. Don't cry, dear.'
'Want to see the damned chameleon,' said Archie, with his hands in his eyes. 'Want father to take me to the Zoo.'
'You can't go to the Zoo this time of the evening. What do you mean?'
'I want to see the damned chameleon.'
'You hear!' exclaimed Bruce to Edith.
'Who taught you this language?'
'Miss Townsend taught it me.'
'There! It's dreadful, Edith; he's becoming a reckless liar. Fancy her dreaming of teaching him such things! If she did, of course she must be mad, and you must send her away at once. But I'm quite sure she didn't.'
'Come, Archie, you know Miss Townsend never taught you to say that.
What have you got into your head?'
'Well, she didn't exactly teach me to say it—she didn't give me lessons in it—but she says it herself. She said the damned chameleon was lovely; and I want to see it. She didn't say I ought to see it. But I want to. I've been wanting to ever since. She said it at lunch today, and I do want to. Lots of other boys go to the Zoo, and why shouldn't I? I want to see it so much.'
'Edith, I must speak to Miss Townsend about this very seriously. In the first place, people have got no right to talk about queer animals to the boy at all—we all know what he is—and in such language! I should have thought a girl like Miss Townsend, who has