position and--a _beau nom_. You have more than one
indeed, if all I hear be true. You 're both of the old religion, you
're both at the mating age. In every way it would be a highly suitable
match. Wait for a good occasion--occasion's everything. Wait
for--what does the poet say?--for the time and the place and the loved
one all together, and tell her that you love her. And now--here comes
the tea."

And with the tea came Susanna, in a wonderful rustling blue-grey
confection of the material that is known, I believe, as _voile_; and
immediately after Susanna, Adrian.

XIV

Adrian was clearly in a state of excitement. His hair was ruffled, his
pink face showed a deeper flush, his lips were parted, his bosom heaved.

He halted near the threshold, he threw up his hands, he rolled his
eyes, he nodded. It was patent that something had happened.

"Oh, my dears! my dears!" he gasped.

His dears attended, curious, expectant. But as he stood silent, and
merely cast intensely significant glances from one to the other, and
thence to the walls and ceiling, Anthony, constituting himself
spokesman for the company, asked, "Well--? What's the row?"

"Oh, my dears!" Adrian repeated, and advanced a few steps further into
the room, his hands still raised.

"What _is_ it?" besought Susanna, breathless.

"Oh, my dearie dears!" he gasped.

He sank upon a chair.

"I must have a cup of tea before I can speak. Perhaps a cup of tea
will pull me together."

Susanna hastily poured and brought him a cup of tea.

"Ministering angel!" was his acknowledgment. He tasted his tea. "But
oh--unkind--you 've forgotten the sugar." He gazed helplessly at the
tea-table.

Anthony brought him the sugar-bowl.

"Are those cruffins?" he asked, eyeing a dish on the cake-stand.

"They 're mumpers," said Miss Sandus, pushing the cake-stand towards
him. "But you 're keeping us on tenter-hooks."

"I 'm _so_ sorry. It's beyond my control. I must eat a mumpet.
Perhaps then I 'll be able to tell you all about it."

He ate his mumpet--with every sign of relish; he sipped his tea; his
audience waited. In the end he breathed a deep, long sigh.

"I 've had an experience--I 've had the experience of my life," he said.

"Yes--?" said they.

"I could n't lose an instant--I had to run--to tell you of it. I felt
it would consume me if I could n't share it."

Their faces proclaimed their eagerness to hear.

"May I have another c