Helen poured out the tea.  Emanuel took a cup and saucer in one hand and the plate of bread and butter in the other, and ceremoniously approached Sarah Swetnam.  Sarah accepted the cup and saucer, delicately chose a piece of bread and butter and lodged it on her saucer, and went on talking.

Emanuel returned to the table, and, reladen, approached old Jimmy, and old Jimmy had to lodge a piece of bread and butter on his saucer.  Then Emanuel removed his gloves, and in a moment they were all drinking tea and nibbling bread and butter.

What a fall was this from kidney omelettes!  And four had struck!  Did Helen expect her uncle to make his tea off a slice of bread and butter that weighed about two drachms?

When the alleged tea was over James got on his feet, and silently slid into the kitchen.  The fact was that Emanuel Prockter and the manikin airs of Emanuel Prockter made him positively sick.  He had not been in the kitchen more than a minute before he was aware of amazing matters in the conversation.

“Yes,” said Helen; “it’s small.”

“But, my child, you’ve always been used to a small house, surely.  I think it’s just as quaint and pretty as a little museum.”

“Would you like to live in a little museum?”

A laugh from Emanuel, and the voice of Helen proceeding: 

“I’ve always lived in a small house, just as I’ve taught six hours a day in a school.  But not because I wanted to.  I like room.  I daresay that uncle and I may find another house one of these days.”

“Up at Hillport, I hope,” Emanuel put in.  James could see his mincing imbecile smile through the kitchen wall.

“Who knows?” said Helen.

James returned to the front room.  “What’s that ye’re saying?” he questioned the company.

“I was just saying how quaint and pretty your house is,” said Sarah, and she rose to depart.  More kissings, flutterings, swishings!  Emanuel bowed.

Emanuel followed Miss Swetnam in a few minutes.  Helen accompanied him to the gate, where she stayed a little while talking to him.  James was in the blackest gloom.

“And now, you dear old thing,” said Helen, vivaciously bustling into the house, “you shall have your tea.  You’ve behaved like a perfect angel.”

And she kissed him on the cheek, very excitedly, as he thought.

She gave him another kidney omelette for his tea.  It was even more adorable than the former one.  With the taste of it in his mouth, he could not recur to the question of the ten-pound note all at once.  When tea was over she retired upstairs, and remained in retirement for ages.  She descended at a quarter to eight, with her hat and gloves on.  It appeared to him that her eyes were inflamed.

“I’m going out,” she said, with no further explanation.

And out she went, leaving the old man, stricken daft by too many sensations, to collect his wits.