Meanwhile two very much surprised young people confronted two still
perturbed old ones in the sunset on Phyllis' veranda.
"Now _why_ do you suppose," Allan demanded of the world in
general, "Johnny didn't break the news to us? I've rarely known a
man who liked secrets less. He hasn't even come over and looked
radiant with his mouth shut, as a normal human being would."
Phyllis picked up Angela and gazed over her head as she considered.
She had a way of using Angela as most women do knitting or embroidery:
as something to have in her hands when she wanted to think.
"It was certainly a case of very silent emotion," she said
contemplatively.
"What was there a case of, Mother?" demanded Philip, reappearing,
very dusty, and climbing up on all of her that Angela didn't occupy,
thereby damaging fatally the spotlessness of her crinkled white silk
skirt. "Is it something to eat? Did Johnny bring--"
"Johnny brought the rather surprising news that he and Joy are going
to be married," his mother informed him, kissing the back of his
neck. She spoke to him, as she always did, in a manner entirely
unedited for children. If he didn't always know the long words, as
she said, so much the better--his growing intelligence was stretched
a little hunting them up.
The growing intelligence was certainly excited now.
"Married?" inquired Philip indignantly, voicing the feelings of the
entire party. "Well, I think it would of been politer to have let us
know before they spoke to each other about it!"
It was no time to feed either of the children, and their nurse would
have been horrified, but Allan produced a box of marshmallows from
behind a jardiniere before anything more was said.
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