Captain Yule continued to laugh. "There is something in that then, since you mention it!"
"I think you'll find that there's everything." Mr. Prodmore again looked at his watch. "Which will you take first?"
His companion, at this, unmistakeably started. "Do you mean your daughter's _here_?"
Mr. Prodmore glowed with consciousness. "In the morning-room."
The tone showed a consternation that Mr. Prodmore's was alert to soothe. "Ah, as long, you know, as you like!"
Yule's alarm, however, was not assuaged; it appeared to grow as he stared, much discomposed, yet sharply thinking, at the door to which his friend had pointed. "Oh, longer than _this_, please!" Then as he turned away: "Do you mean she knows----?"
"That she's here on view?" Mr. Prodmore hung fire a moment, but was equal to the occasion. "She knows nothing whatever. She's as unconscious as the rose on its stem!"
His companion was visibly relieved. "That's right--let her remain so! I'll first take the house," said Clement Yule.
"Shall I go round _with_ you?" Mr. Prodmore asked.
The young man's reflection was brief. "Thank you. I'd rather, on the whole, go round alone."
The old servant who had admitted the gentlemen came back at this crisis from the morning-room, looking from under a bent brow and with much limpid earnestness from one of them to the other. The one he first addressed had evidently, though quite unaware of it, inspired him with a sympathy from which he now took a hint. "There's tea on, sir!" he persuasively jerked as he passed the younger man.
The elder answered. "Then I'll join my daughter." He gained the morning-room door, whence he repeated with an appropriate gesture--that of offering proudly, with light, firm fingers, a flower of his own celebrated raising--his happy formula of Miss Prodmore's state. "The rose on its stem!" Scattering petals, diffusing fragrance, he thus passed out.
Chivers, meanwhile, had rather pointlessly settled once more in its place some small object that had not strayed; to whom Clement Yule, absently watching him, abruptly broke out. "I say, my friend, what colour is the rose?"
The old man looked up with a dimness that presently glimmered. "The rose, sir?" He turned to the open door and the shining day. "Rather a brilliant----"