"I've been pretending the whole blessed afternoon. But it's no good pretending with _you_. You jolly well see everything." "I don't go and draw other people's attention to it." "Oh, come, how about Ralph? You know you wouldn't let him miss him." "Ralph? Oh, Ralph's different. I shouldn't point him out to Lady Corbett." "No more should I. _You_'re different, too. You and Ralph and me are the only people capable of appreciating him. Though I wouldn't swear that the mater doesn't, sometimes." "Yes. But you go too far, Horry. You're cruel to him, and we're not." "It's all very well for you. He isn't your father.... Oh, Lord, he's craning his neck over Markham's shoulder now. What his face must look like from the other side--" "If you found your father drunk under a lilac bush I believe you'd go and fetch me to look at him." "I would, if he was as funny as he is now.... But I say, you know, I can't have him going on like that. I've got to stop it, somehow. What would you do if you were me?" "Do? I think I should ask him to go and take Lady Corbett in to tea." "Good." Horry strode up to his father. "I say, pater, aren't you going to take Lady Corbett in to tea?" At the sheer sound of his son's voice Mr. Waddington's dignity stood firm. But he went off to find Lady Corbett all the same. When it was all over the garden party was pronounced a great success, and Mr. Waddington was very agreeably rallied on his discovery, taxed with trying to keep it to himself, and warned that, he wasn't going to have it all his own way. "It's our turn now," said Major Markham, "to have a look in." And their turn was constantly coming round again; they were always looking in at the White House. First, Major Markham called. Then Sir John Corbett of Underwoods, Mr. Thurston of The Elms, and Mr. Hawtrey of Medlicott called and brought their wives. These ladies, however, didn't like Mrs. Levitt, and they were not at home when she returned their calls. Mrs. Levitt's visiting card had its place in three collections and there the matter ended. But Mr. Thurston and Mr. Hawtrey continued to call with a delightful sense of doing something that their wives considered improper. Major Markham--as a bachelor his movements were more untrammelled--declared it his ambition to "cut Waddy out." _He_ was everlastingly calling at the White House. His fastidious correctness, the correctness that hadn't "liked the look of her," excused this intensive culture of Mrs. Levitt on the grounds that she was "well connected"; she knew all his sister's people.