But the dinner-guests the Rector, Mr. Swordsley, his wife Mrs. Swordsley, Lucy and Agnes Granger, their brother Addison, and young Jack Emmerton from Harvard were all, for divers reasons, stirred to the proper pitch of feeling. Mr. Swordsley, no doubt, was saying to himself: If my good parishioner here can afford to buy a motor-boat, in addition to all the other expenditures which an establishment like this must entail, I certainly need not scruple to appeal to him again for a contribution for our Galahad Club. The Granger girls, meanwhile, were evoking visions of lakeside picnics, not unadorned with the presence of young Mr. Emmerton; while that youth himself speculated as to whether his affable host would let him, when he came back on his next vacation, learn to run the thing himself; and Mr. Addison Granger, the elderly bachelor brother of the volatile Lucy and Agnes, mentally formulated the precise phrase in which, in his next letter to his cousin Professor Spildyke of the University of East Latmos, he should allude to our last delightful trip in my old friend Cobham Stillings ten-thousand-dollar motor-launch for East Latmos was still in that primitive stage of culture on which five figures impinge.
Isabel Stilling, sitting beside Mrs. Swordsley, her bead slightly bent above the needlework with which on these occasions it was her old-fashioned habit to employ herself Isabel also had doubtless her reflections to make. As Wrayford leaned back in his corner and looked at her across the wide flower-filled drawing-room he noted, first of all for the how many hundredth time? the play of her hands above the embroidery-frame, the shadow of the thick dark hair on her forehead, the lids over her somewhat full grey eyes. He noted all this with a conscious deliberateness of enjoyment, taking in unconsciously, at the same time, the particular quality in her attitude, in the fall of her dress and the turn of her head, which had set her for him, from the first day, in a separate world; then he said to himself: She is certainly thinking: Where on earth will Cobham get the money to pay for it?
Stilling, cigar in mouth and thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, was impressively perorating from his usual dominant position on the hearth-rug.
I said: If I have the thing at all, I want the best that can be got. Thats my way, you know, Swordsley; I suppose Im what youd call fastidious. Always was, about everything, from cigars to wom his eye met the apprehensive glance of Mrs. Swordsley, who looked like her husband with his clerical coat cut slightly lower so I said: If I have the thing at all, I want the best that can be got. Nothing makeshift for me, no second-best. I never cared for the cheap and showy. I always say frankly to a man: If you cant give me a first-rate cigar, for the Lords sake let me smoke my own. He paused to do so. Well, if you have my standards, you cant buy a thing in a minute. You must look round, compare, select. I found there were lots of motor-boats on the market, just as theres lots of stuff called champagne. But I said to myself: Ten to one theres only one fit to buy, just as theres only one champagne fit for a gentleman to drink. Argued like a lawyer, eh, Austin? He tossed this to Wrayford. Take me for one of your own trade, wouldnt you? Well, Im not such a fool as I look. I suppose you fellows who are tied to the treadmill excuse me, Swordsley, but works work, isnt it? I suppose you think a man like me has nothing to do but take it easy: loll through life like a woman. By George, sir, Id like either of you to see the time it takes I wont say the brain but just the time it takes to pick out a good motor-boat. Why, I went
Mrs. Stilling set her embroidery-frame noiselessly on the table at her side, and turned her head toward Wrayford. Would you mind ringing for the tray?
The interruption helped Mrs. Swordsley to waver to her feet. Im afraid we ought really to be going; my husband has an early service to-morrow.
Her host intervened with a genial protest. Going already? Nothing of the sort! Why, the nights still young, as the poet says. Long way from here to the rectory? Nonsense! In our little twenty-horse car we do it in five minutes dont we, Belle? Ah, youre walking, to be sure Stillings indulgent gesture seemed to concede that, in such a case, allowances must be made, and that he was the last man not to make them. Well, then, Swordsley He held out a thick red hand that seemed to exude beneficence, and the clergyman, pressing it, ventured to murmur a suggestion.
What, that Galahad Club again? Why, I thought my wife Isabel, didnt we No? Well, it must have been my mother, then. Of course, you know, anything my good mother gives is well virtually You havent asked her? Sure? I could have sworn; I get so many of these appeals. And in these times, you know, we have to go cautiously. Im sure you recognize that yourself, Swordsley. With my obligations here now, to show you dont bear malice, have a brandy and soda before you go. Nonsense, man! This brandy isnt liquor; its liqueur. I picked it up last year in London last of a famous lot from Lord St. Oswyns cellar. Laid down here, it stood me at Eh? he broke off as his wife moved toward him. Ah, yes, of course. Miss Lucy, Miss Agnes a drop of soda-water? Look here, Addison, you wont refuse my tipple, I know. Well, take a cigar, at any rate, Swordsley. And, by the way, Im afraid youll have to go round the long way by the avenue to-night. Sorry, Mrs. Swordsley, but I forgot to tell them to leave the gate into the lane unlocked. Well, its a jolly night, and I daresay you wont mind the extra turn along the lake. And, by Jove! if the moons out, youll have a glimpse of the motorboat. Shes moored just out beyond our boat-house; and its a privilege to look at her, I can tell you!