"
Basil stared indignantly for a few minutes. Then he was shaken for
an instant with one of his sudden laughs.
"Poor little boys," he said. "But it almost serves them right for
holding such silly views, after all," and he quaked again with
amusement "there's something confoundedly Darwinian about it."
"I suppose you mean to help us?" said Rupert.
"Oh, yes, I'll be in it," answered Basil, "if it's only to prevent
your doing the poor chaps any harm."
He was standing in the rear of our little procession, looking
indifferent and sometimes even sulky, but somehow the instant the
door opened he stepped first into the hall, glowing with urbanity.
"So sorry to haunt you like this," he said. "I met two friends
outside who very much want to know you. May I bring them in?"
"Delighted, of course," said a young voice, the unmistakable voice
of the Isis, and I realized that the door had been opened, not by
the decorous little servant girl, but by one of our hosts in
person. He was a short, but shapely young gentleman, with curly
dark hair and a square, snub-nosed face. He wore slippers and a
sort of blazer of some incredible college purple.
"This way," he said; "mind the steps by the staircase. This house
is more crooked and old-fashioned than you would think from its
snobbish exterior.
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