CHAPTER III - THE BEARGARDEN


Lady Carbury's house in Welbeck Street was a modest house enough,
--with no pretensions to be a mansion, hardly assuming even to be a
residence; but, having some money in her hands when she first took it,
she had made it pretty and pleasant, and was still proud to feel that
in spite of the hardness of her position she had comfortable
belongings around her when her literary friends came to see her on her
Tuesday evenings. Here she was now living with her son and daughter.
The back drawing-room was divided from the front by doors that were
permanently closed, and in this she carried on her great work. Here
she wrote her books and contrived her system for the inveigling of
editors and critics. Here she was rarely disturbed by her daughter,
and admitted no visitors except editors and critics. But her son was
controlled by no household laws, and would break in upon her privacy
without remorse. She had hardly finished two galloping notes after
completing her letter to Mr Ferdinand Alf, when Felix entered the room
with a cigar in his mouth and threw himself upon the sofa.

'My dear boy,' she said, 'pray leave your tobacco below when you come
in here.'

'What affectation it is, mother,' he said, throwing, however, the
half-smoked cigar into the fire-place. 'Some women swear they like
smoke, others say they hate it like the devil. It depends altogether
on whether they wish to flatter or snub a fellow.'

'You don't suppose that I wish to snub you?'