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He did not know why she imagined that anything had
been the matter with him, for the kitchen door was closed
when he came up with the children, and they had not left
him.
‘Dinner won’t be ready for another ten minutes,’ she said,
in her slow drawl. ‘Won’t you have an egg beaten up in a
glass of milk while you’re waiting?’
There was a look of concern on her face which made Phil-
ip uncomfortable. He forced a laugh and answered that he
was not at all hungry. Sally came in to lay the table, and
Philip began to chaff her. It was the family joke that she
would be as fat as an aunt of Mrs. Athelny, called Aunt Eliz-
abeth, whom the children had never seen but regarded as
the type of obscene corpulence.
‘I say, what HAS happened since I saw you last, Sally?’
Philip began.
‘Nothing that I know of.’
‘I believe you’ve been putting on weight.’
‘I’m sure you haven’t,’ she retorted. ‘You’re a perfect skel-
eton.’
Philip reddened.
‘That’s a tu quoque, Sally,’ cried her father. ‘You will be
fined one golden hair of your head. Jane, fetch the shears.’
‘Well, he is thin, father,’ remonstrated Sally. ‘He’s just
skin and bone.’
‘That’s not the question, child. He is at perfect liberty to
be thin, but your obesity is contrary to decorum.’
As he spoke he put his arm proudly round her waist and
looked at her with admiring eyes.