“Well, I can’t judge if I don’t see it on, can I?” he said, yielding superciliously to their mood.  Women were incurable.  Namur had fallen, but the room was full of finery, and the finery claimed attention.  And if Paris had fallen, it would have been the same.  So he told himself.  Nevertheless the spectacle of the heaped finery and its absorbed priestess was very agreeable.  Lois rose.  Laurencine and the priestess helped her to remove the white gown she wore, and to put on the blue one.  The presence of the male somewhat disturbed the priestess, but the male had signified a wish and the wish was flattering and had to be fulfilled.  George, cynically, enjoyed her constraint.  He might at least have looked out of the window, but he would not.

“Yes, that’s fine,” he decided carelessly, when the operation was done.  He did not care a pin which tea-gown Lois had.

“I knew you’d like it better,” said Lois eagerly.  The other two, in words or by demeanour, applauded his august choice.

The affair was over.  The priestess began to collect her scattered stock into a light trunk.  Behind her back, Lois took hold of Laurencine and kissed her fondly.  Laurencine smiled, and persuaded Lois into a chair.

“You will of course keep that on, madam?” the priestess suggested.

“Oh yes, darling, you must rest, really!” said Laurencine earnestly.

“Thank you, madam.”

In three minutes the priestess, bearing easily the trunk by a strap, had gone, bowing.  Lois’s old tea-gown, flung across the head of the sofa, alone remained to brighten the furniture.

The drawing-room door opened again immediately, and a military officer entered.  Laurencine sprang up with a little girlish scream and ran to him.

“Oh!  Dearest!  Have you got them already?  You never told me you would have!  How lovely you look!”

Blushing with pleasure and pride, she kissed him.  It was Everard Lucas.  Laurencine had come to Elm Park Road that afternoon with the first news that Everard, through a major known to his late mother, had been offered a commission in a Territorial line regiment.  George, who saw Lucas but seldom, had not the slightest idea of this enormous family event, and he was astounded; he had not been so taken back by anything perhaps for years.  Lucas was rounder and his face somewhat coarser than in the past; but the uniform had created a new Lucas.  It was beautifully made and he wore it well; it suited him; he had the fine military air of a regular; he showed no awkwardness, only a simple vanity.

“Don’t you feel as if you must kiss him, Lois darling?” said Laurencine.

“Oh!  I certainly must!” Lois cried, forgetting her woes in the new tea-gown and in the sudden ecstasy produced by the advent of an officer into the family.

Lucas bent down and kissed his sister-in-law, while Laurencine beheld the act with delight.

“The children must see you before you go,” said Lois.