Page:Hichens - The Green Carnation.djvu/30

22 call my stay in the desert 'the Surrey week.' It is such fun. You will come, won't you?"

Lady Locke was laughing almost against her will.

"Is Jim to be there?" she asked, putting the china bowl, that had held her Bovril, down upon the tiny table, covered with absurd silver knickknacks, at her side.

"Dear no. Jim stays in town, and has his annual rowdy-dowdy week. He looks forward to it immensely. Will you come?"

"If I may bring Tommy? I don't like to part from him. I am an old-fashioned mother, and quite fond of my boy."

"But that's not old-fashioned. It is our girls we dislike. We always take the boys everywhere. You must not mind close quarters. We live in a sort of big cottage that I have built near Leith Hill. We walk up the hill nearly every day after lunch. Tommy can play about with the curate's little boys. They all wear spectacles; but I believe they are quite nice-minded, so that will be all right, as you are so particular."

"And do green carnations bloom on the cottage walls?"

"My dear Emily, green carnations never bloom on walls at all. Of course they are dyed. That is why they are original. Mr.