Never a dispute arose thereafter. They idolised this pretty Miss Humfray: whatsoever she said was clearly right.
Here, however, was a dangerous conflict of opinion. They hung back.
“Quickly,” Mary repeated. “Kiss him, and say thank-you quickly, or there will be no story when you are in bed.”
It was a terrific price to pay; their troubled faces mirrored the conflict of decision.
David found solution. In his slow, solemn voice, “You kiss him first,” he said. Miss Humfray always took their medicine first, and David argued from the one evil necessity to this other.
Mr. Bob Chater laughed delightedly. “That's a brilliant idea!” he cried; came two strides towards Mary; put a hand upon her arm.
So sudden, so unexpected was his movement, that by the narrowest chance only did she escape his purpose. A jerk of her head, and he had mouthed at the air two inches from her face.
She shook her arm free. “Oh!” she cried; and in the exclamation there was that which would have given a nicer man pause.
Mr. Bob Chater was nothing abashed. A handsome face and a bold air had made conquests easy to him. It was an axiom of his that a girl who worked for her living by that fact proclaimed flirtation to be agreeable to her--at all events with such as he. Chance had so shaped affairs that this was the first time his theory had found disproof. He saw she was offended; so much the more tickling; conquest was thereby the more enticing.
Mary did not reply. The command to kiss their brother went by default; she hurried her charges through the door to the adjoining night nursery.
When they were started upon undressing she came back.
“You're going to let me see you tub them?” Bob asked her.
Busy replacing toys in cupboards, she did not reply.
Bob Chater discarded the laugh from his tone. “If you are angry, I'm very sorry. You must have known I was only fooling. It was only to make the kids laugh.”
So far as was possible she kept her back to him.
The continued slight pricked him. His voice hardened. “When I have the grace to apologise, I think you might have the grace to accept it.”
Mary said in low tones: “If you meant only to make them laugh, of course I believe you. It is all right.”
“Good. Well, now, may I see them tubbed?”