So Lancelot rang the bell, and Mary Ann came up with the tea-tray in the twilight.

“We’ll have a light,” cried Peter, and struck one of his own with a shadowy underthought of saving Mary Ann from a possible scolding, in case Lancelot’s matches should be again unapparent.  Then he uttered a comic exclamation of astonishment.  Mary Ann was putting on a pair of gloves!  In his surprise he dropped the match.

Mary Ann was equally startled by the unexpected sight of a stranger, but when he struck his second match her hands were bare and red.

“What in Heaven’s name were you putting on gloves for, my girl?” said Peter, amused.

Lancelot stared fixedly at the fire, trying to keep the blood from flooding his cheeks.  He wondered that the ridiculousness of the whole thing had never struck him in its full force before.  Was it possible he could have made such an ass of himself?

“Please, sir, I’ve got to go out, and I’m in a hurry,” said Mary Ann.

Lancelot felt intense relief.  An instant after his brow wrinkled itself.  “Oho!” he thought.  “So this is Miss Simpleton, is it?”

“Then why did you take them off again?” retorted Peter.

Mary Ann’s repartee was to burst into tears and leave the room.

“Now I’ve offended her,” said Peter.  “Did you see how she tossed her pretty head?”

“Ingenious minx,” thought Lancelot.

“She’s left the tray on a chair by the, door,” went on Peter.  “What an odd girl!  Does she always carry on like this?”

“She’s got such a lot to do.  I suppose she sometimes gets a bit queer in her head,” said Lancelot, conceiving he was somehow safeguarding Mary Ann’s honour by the explanation.

“I don’t think that,” answered Peter.  “She did seem dull and stupid when I was here last.  But I had a good stare at her just now, and she seems rather bright.  Why, her accent is quite refined—­she must have picked it up from you.”

“Nonsense, nonsense,” exclaimed Lancelot, testily.

The little danger—­or rather the great danger of being made to appear ridiculous—­which he had just passed through, contributed to rouse him from his torpor.  He exerted himself to turn the conversation, and was quite lively over tea.

“Sw—­eet!  Sw—­w—­w—­w—­eet!” suddenly broke into the conversation.

“More mysteries!” cried Peter.  “What’s that?”

“Only a canary.”

“What, another musical instrument!  Isn’t Beethoven jealous?  I wonder he doesn’t consume his rival in his wrath.  But I never knew you liked birds.”

“I don’t particularly.  It isn’t mine.”

“Whose is it?”

Lancelot answered briskly:  “Mary Ann’s.  She asked to be allowed to keep it here.  It seems it won’t sing in her attic; it pines away.”

“And do you believe that?”

“Why not?  It doesn’t sing much even here.”

“Let me look at it—­ah, it’s a plain Norwich yellow.  If you wanted a singing canary you should have come to me; I’d have given you one ’made in Germany’—­one of our patents—­they train them to sing tunes and that puts up the price.”