"I've had my supper," Norah informed him, brightly.
This really annoyed Mr. Caffyn extremely, for he had been looking forward to telling his daughter that her supper had been kept waiting until ten o'clock, when it had finally been removed in order to allow the servants to go to bed. At this moment Mrs. Caffyn, who had hurried down-stairs to the kitchen as soon as she heard Norah coming, arrived in the dining-room with a tray.
"She's had her supper," said Mr. Caffyn, indignantly.
"Oh no, she's had her supper," said Mr. Caffyn. "Good Heavens! I don't know what the world's coming to!"
Since her father was making a cosmic affair of her behavior in going out to supper without leave, Norah decided to give him something to worry about in earnest, and, seating herself in the arm-chair on the other side of the fireplace, she prepared to argue with him. Mrs. Caffyn began to murmur about going to bed and talking things over when father came back from the office to-morrow, but Norah waved aside all procrastination.
"I want to talk about my engagement," she began.
Roland, who had just reached the door, stopped. Wilfred Curlew was a friend of his; in fact, it was he who had first brought him to the house, and though he knew that anything in the nature of an engagement between him and one of his sisters was ridiculous, he hoped that a soothing testimony from him would prevent Wilfred's final exclusion from the family circle.
"Norah, dear child, it isn't nice to begin playing jokes upon your father at this hour, especially when he isn't very pleased with you," Mrs. Caffyn said, waving her eyes in the direction of the door.
"I'm not at all sleepy," said Norah, coldly. "And I'm not joking. I want to know if father is going to let Wilfred and me be openly engaged?" she persisted, holding up her left hand so that the gaslight illuminated the ring upon the third finger.
"And who may Wilfred be?" demanded Mr. Caffyn.
This seemed to Roland a suitable moment for his intervention, and, though he had for some time been aware that his father was growing impatient of their habitual visitor, he pretended to accept this attitude of Olympian ignorance and reminded him that Wilfred was a friend who sometimes came in during the evening.