“Idiot!” said Derek placidly.
“Not,” pursued Freddie, “that I mean to say anything in the least derogatory and so forth to your jolly old mater, if you understand me, but the fact remains she scares me pallid! Always has, ever since the first time I went to stay at your place when I was a kid. I can still remember catching her eye the morning I happened by pure chance to bung an apple through her bedroom window, meaning to let a cat on the sill below have it in the short ribs. She was at least thirty feet away, but, by Jove, it stopped me like a bullet!”
“Push the bell, old man, will you? I want some more toast.”
Freddie did as he was requested with growing admiration.
“The condemned man made an excellent breakfast,” he murmured. “More toast, Parker,” he added, as that admirable servitor opened the door. “Gallant! That’s what I call it. Gallant!”
Derek tilted his chair back.
“Mother is sure to like Jill when she sees her,” he said.
“When she sees her! Ah! But the trouble is, young feller-me-lad, that she hasn’t seen her! That’s the weak spot in your case, old companion! A month ago she didn’t know of Jill’s existence. Now, you know and I know that Jill is one of the best and brightest. As far as we are concerned, everything in the good old garden is lovely. Why, dash it, Jill and I were children together. Sported side by side on the green, and what not. I remember Jill, when she was twelve, turning the garden-hose on me and knocking about seventy-five per cent off the market value of my best Sunday suit. That sort of thing forms a bond, you know, and I’ve always felt that she was a corker. But your mater’s got to discover it for herself. It’s a dashed pity, by Jove, that Jill hasn’t a father or a mother or something of that species to rally round just now. They would form a gang. There’s nothing like a gang! But she’s only got that old uncle of hers. A rummy bird! Met him?”
“Several times. I like him.”
“Oh, he’s a genial old buck all right. A very bonhomous lad. But you hear some pretty queer stories about him if you get among people who knew him in the old days. Even now I’m not so dashed sure I should care to play cards with him. Young Threepwood was telling me only the other day that the old boy took thirty quid off him at picquet as clean as a whistle. And Jimmy Monroe, who’s on the Stock Exchange, says he’s frightfully busy these times buying margins or whatever it is chappies do down in the City. Margins. That’s the word. Jimmy made me buy some myself on a thing called Amalgamated Dyes. I don’t understand the procedure exactly, but Jimmy says it’s a sound egg and will do me a bit of good. What was I talking about? Oh, yes, old Selby. There’s no doubt he’s quite a sportsman. But till you’ve got Jill well established, you know, I shouldn’t enlarge on him too much with the mater.”
“On the contrary,” said Derek. “I shall mention him at the first opportunity. He knew my father out in India.”
“Did he, by Jove! Oh, well, that makes a difference.”
Parker entered with the toast, and Derek resumed his breakfast.
“It may be a little bit awkward,” he said, “at first, meeting mother. But everything will be all right after five minutes.”
“Absolutely! But, oh, boy! that first five minutes!” Freddie gazed portentously through his eye-glass. Then he seemed to be undergoing some internal struggle, for he gulped once or twice. “That first five minutes!” he said, and paused again. A moment’s silent self-communion, and he went on with a rush. “I say, listen. Shall I come along, too?”
“Come along?”
“To the station. With you.”
“What on earth for?”
“To see you through the opening stages. Break the ice and all that sort of thing. Nothing like collecting a gang, you know. Moments when a feller needs a friend and so forth. Say the word, and I’ll buzz along and lend my moral support.”