Aunt Barbara made the best of it: shook hands in her jolly manner, and
burst into laughter.
"Michael, I could slay you," she said; "but before I do that I must tell
your friends all about it. This horrible nephew of mine, Miss Falbe,
promised me two weird musicians, and I expected--I really can't tell you
what I expected--but there were to be spectacles and velveteen coats and
the general air of an afternoon concert at Clapham Junction. But it is
nice to be made such a fool of. I feel precisely like an elderly and
sour governess who has been ordered to come down to dinner so that
there shan't be thirteen. Give me your arm, Mr. Falbe, and take me in
to dinner at once, where I may drown my embarrassment in soup. Or does
Michael go in first? Go on, wretch!"
Presently they were seated at dinner, and Aunt Barbara could not help
enlarging a little on her own discomfiture.
"It is all your fault, Michael," she said. "You have been in London all
these weeks without letting me know anything about you or your friends,
or what you were doing; so naturally I supposed you were leading some
obscure kind of existence. Instead of which I find this sort of thing.
My dear, what good soup! I shall see if I can't induce your cook to
leave you.
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