“You bad boy, to say anything against the Lewis!” exclaimed Sheila; and Ingram held that she was right, and that there were certain sorts of ingratitude more disgraceful than others, and that this was just about the worst.

“Oh, I have brought all the good away from Lewis,” said Lavender with a careless impertinence.

“No,” said Sheila proudly.  “You have not brought away my papa, and there is not any one in this country I have seen as good as he is.”

“My dear, your experience of the thirty millions of folks in these islands is quite convincing.  I was wholly in the wrong; and if you forgive me we shall celebrate our reconciliation in a cigarette—­that is to say, Ingram and I will perform the rites, and you can look on.”

So Sheila went away to get the cigarettes also.

“You don’t say you smoke in your drawing-room, Lavender?” said Ingram, mindful of the fastidious ways of his friend even when he had bachelor’s rooms in King street.

“Don’t I, though?  I smoke everywhere—­all over the place.  Don’t you see, we have no visitors yet.  No one is supposed to know we have come South.  Sheila must get all sorts of things before she can be introduced to my friends and my aunt’s friends, and the house must be put to rights, too.  You wouldn’t have her go to see my aunt in that sailor’s costume she used to rush about in up in Lewis?”

“That is precisely what I would have,” said Ingram:  “she cannot look more handsome in any other dress.”

“Why, my aunt would fancy I had married a savage:  I believe she fears something of the sort now.”

“And you haven’t told even her that you are in London?”

“No.”

“Well, Lavender, that is a precious silly performance.  Suppose she hears of your being in town, what will you say to her?”

“I should tell her I wanted a few days to get my wife properly dressed before taking her about.”

Ingram shrugged his shoulders:  “Perhaps you are right.  Perhaps, indeed, it would be better if you waited six months before you introduced Sheila to your friends.  At present you seem to be keeping the footlights turned down until everything is ready for the first scene, and then Sheila is to burst upon society in a blaze of light and color.  Well, that is harmless enough; but look here!  You don’t know much about her yet:  you will be mainly anxious to hear what the audience, as it were, say of her; and there is just a chance of your adopting their impressions and opinions of Sheila, seeing that you have no very fixed ones of your own.  Now, what your social circle may think about her is a difficult thing to decide; and I confess I would rather have seen you remain six months in Lewis before bringing her up here.”