She was the third thing feminine to kiss Lewisham since the
promiscuous days of his babyhood. "I was so afraid--There!" She
laughed hysterically.

"You'll excuse my saying that it's comforting to see you--honest like
and young. Not but what Ethel ... _He_ has been something dreadful,"
said Mrs. Chaffery. "You didn't ought to have written about that
mesmerising. And of all letters that which Jane wrote--there! But
he's waiting and listening--"

"Are we to go downstairs, Mums?" asked Ethel.

"He's waiting for you there," said Mrs. Chaffery. She held a dismal
little oil lamp, and they descended a tenebrous spiral structure into
an underground breakfast-room lit by gas that shone through a
partially frosted globe with cut-glass stars. That descent had a
distinctly depressing effect upon Lewisham. He went first. He took a
deep breath at the door. What on earth was Chaffery going to say? Not
that he cared, of course.

Chaffery was standing with his back to the fire, trimming his
finger-nails with a pocket-knife. His gilt glasses were tilted forward
so as to make an inflamed knob at the top of his long nose, and he
regarded Mr. and Mrs. Lewisham over them with--Lewisham doubted his
eyes for a moment--but it was positively a smile, an essentially
waggish smile.

"You've come back," he said quite cheerfully over Lewisham to
Ethel. There was a hint of falsetto in his voice.

"She has called to see her mother," said Lewisham. "You, I believe,
are Mr. Chaffery?"

"I would like to know who the Deuce _you_ are?" said Chaffery,
suddenly tilting his head back so as to look through his glasses
instead of over them, and laughing genially. "For thoroughgoing Cheek,
I'm inclined to think you take the Cake. Are you the Mr. Lewisham to
whom this misguided girl refers in her letter?"

"I am."

"Maggie," said Mr. Chaffery to Mrs. Chaffery, "there is a class of
being upon whom delicacy is lost--to whom delicacy is practically
unknown. Has your daughter got her marriage lines?"

"Mr. Chaffery!" said Lewisham, and Mrs. Chaffery exclaimed, "James!
How _can_ you?"

Chaffery shut his penknife with a click and slipped it into his
vest-pocket. Then he looked up again, speaking in the same equal
voice. "I presume we are civilised persons prepared to manage our
affairs in a civilised way. My stepdaughter vanishes for two nights
and returns with an alleged husband. I at least am not disposed to be
careless about her legal position."