"I should like to," said Nellie generously.
"Well," said he, "I've got to go back to town to-morrow. Wilt come with me, lass?"
"Don't be silly, Edward Henry," said she. "How can I leave Mother in the middle of all this spring-cleaning?"
"You needn't leave Mother. We'll take her too," said Edward Henry lightly.
"I _have_ to go to-morrow, Nell," said Edward Henry. "And I was thinking you might as well come with me. It will be a change for you."
(He said to himself: "And not only have I to go to-morrow, but you absolutely must come with me, my girl. That's the one thing to do.")
"It would be a change for me," Nellie agreed. She was beyond doubt flattered and calmly pleased. "But I can't possibly come to-morrow. You can see that for yourself, dear."
"No, I can't!" he cried impatiently. "What does it matter? Mother'll be here. The kids'll be all right. After all, spring cleaning isn't the day of judgment."
"Edward Henry," said his mother, cutting in between them like a thin blade, "I wish you wouldn't be blasphemous. London's London, and Bursley's Bursley." She had finished.
"It's quite out of the question for me to come to-morrow, dear. I must have notice. I really must."
And Edward Henry saw with alarm that Nellie had made up her mind, and that the flattered calm pleasure in his suggestion had faded from her face.
"Oh, dash these domesticated women!" he thought, and shortly afterwards departed, brooding, to the offices of the Thrift Club.
He timed his return with exactitude, and, going straight up-stairs to the chamber known indifferently as "Maisie's room" or "nurse's room," sure enough he found the three children there alone! They were fed, washed, night-gowned, and even dressing-gowned; and this was the hour when, while Nurse repaired the consequences of their revolutionary conduct in the bathroom and other places, they were left to themselves. Robert lay on the hearth-rug, the insteps of his soft, pink feet rubbing idly against the pile of the rug, his elbows digging into the pile, his chin on his fists, and a book perpendicularly beneath his eyes. Ralph, careless adventurer rather than student, had climbed to the glittering brass rail of Maisie's new bedstead, and was thereon imitating a recently seen circus performance. Maisie, in the bed according to regulation, and lying on the flat of her back, was singing nonchalantly to the ceiling. Carlo, unaware that at that moment he might have been a buried corpse but for the benignancy of Providence in his behalf, was feeling sympathetic towards himself because he was slightly bored.