Ida disliked him at the first glance, and disliked him still more at
the second, as she caught his shifty eyes fixed on her with a curious
and half-insolently admiring expression.
He came round and shook hands--his were damp and cold like his
father's--as Mr. Heron introduced them, and in a voice which
unpleasantly matched his face, said that he was glad to see her.
"Tired, Joseph, dear?" murmured his mother, regarding him with a
mixture of pride and commiseration.
"Oh, I'm worn out, that's what I am," he said, as he sank into a chair
and regarded the certainly untempting food with an eye of disfavour.
"Been hard at it all the evening"--he spoke with a Cockney, city
accent, and was rather uncertain about his aspirates--"I work like a
nigger."
"Labour is prayer," remarked his father, as if he were enunciating
something strikingly original. "Nothing is accomplished without toil,
my dear Joseph."
My dear Joseph regarded his father with very much the same expression
he had bestowed upon the mutton.
"And how do you like London, Cousin Ida?" he asked.
He hesitated before the "Cousin Ida," and got it out rather defiantly,
for there was something in the dignity of this pale, refined face which
awed him. It was perhaps the first time in his life Mr. Joseph had sat
at the same table with a lady; for Mr. John Heron had married beneath
him, and for money; and in retiring from the bar, at which he had been
an obvious failure, had sunk down to the society of his wife's class.
"I have seen so little of it," replied Ida. "I have only passed through
London twice, on my way from France to Herondale, and from Herondale
here." Mr. Joseph was duly impressed by the sound of Herondale.
"Oh, you must tell me all about your old home," he said, with an air of
overconfidence to conceal his nervousness; "and we must show you about
London a bit; it's a tidy little place."
He grinned with an air of knowingness, and seemed rather disconcerted
that Ida did not return his smile.
"Shall I give you some water, Ida?" said Mr. Heron. "I regret that I
cannot offer you any wine. We have no intoxicants in the house. We are
all total abstainers, on principle."
The other members of the family looked down uncomfortably, and, to
Ida's surprise, as if they were ashamed.
"Thank you," she said; "I do not care for wine."