"We're awfully sorry, Mr Fordyce. It was very rude of us. We quite
understand now, don't we, Dilly?"
"Rather," said Dilly. "It was horrible of us, Mr Fordyce. But we thought
you were just an ordinary bore."
"Children!" said Kitty.
"But what you have told us makes things quite different, doesn't it,
Dolly?" continued Dilly.
"Quite--absolutely," said Dolly.
And they smiled upon him, quite maternally. And so the incident passed.
"How queer, not talking to a woman for three years!" continued Dolly
reflectively.
"How _awful_ it would be not to talk to a man for three years!" said
Dilly, with obvious sincerity.
"There is little opportunity for social intercourse," said Robin, "to a
man who comes to London to sink or swim."
The conversation was again taking a slightly sombre turn, and I struck
in--
"Well, I hope, Mr Fordyce, that a few weeks' experience of my
establishment won't have the effect of making you regret your previous
celibate existence."
Dolly and Dilly looked at each other.
"Dolly," said Dilly, "is that an insult?"
"I think so."
"Insulting enough to be punishable?"
"Rather."
"All right. Come on!"
They fell upon me, and the next few minutes were devoted to what I
believe is known in pantomime circles as a Grand Rally, which
necessitated my going upstairs afterwards and changing my collar.
Robin was not present at tea, and my household took advantage of his
absence to run over his points.
Considering that a woman--especially a young woman--judges a man almost
entirely by his manner and appearance, and dislikes him exceedingly if
he proceeds to dominate the situation to her exclusion--unless, by the
way, he has her permission and authority so to do, in which case he
cannot do so too much--the verdict delivered upon my absent secretary
was not by any means unfavourable, though, of course, there was much to
criticise.
"He'll do," said Dilly; "but you must get his hair cut, Adrian."
"And tell him about not wearing that sort of tie, dear," said Dolly.
"I suppose he can't help his accent," sighs Kitty.
But their criticisms were limited to such trifles as these, and I felt
that Robin had done me credit.
Dilly summed up the situation.
"I think on the whole that he is rather a pet," she said.
A more thoroughly unsuitable description could not have been imagined,
but Dolly agreed.
"He has nice eyes, too," she added.
"He was perfectly sweet with Phillis after lunch," said Kitty. "Took her
on his knee at once, and talked to her just as if we weren't there.
That's a good test of a man, if you like!"
"True for you," I agreed. "I could not do it with other people's
children to save my life."
"Oh, you are hopeless," said Dilly. "_Far_ too self-conscious and
dignified to climb down to the level of children, isn't he, Dolly?" She
crinkled her nose.
Dolly for once was not listening.
"What was that weird stuff the Secretary Bird spouted when you showed
Phillis to him, Kit? About her being forward, or coy, or something. It
sounded rather cheek, to me."
"Yes, I remember," said Dilly. "Can you do the way he said it?
'Sometimes forrrwarrrd, sometimes coy, she neverrr fails to pullllease!'
Like that! Gracious, how it hurts to talk Scotch!"
"I don't know, dear," said my wife thoughtfully. "It sounded rather
quaint. But I daresay all Scotch people are like that," she added
charitably.
"Perhaps it was a quotation," I observed mildly.
"Of course, that would be it. What is it out of?"
"A song called 'Phillis is my only Joy,' I think."
"Ah, then you may depend upon it," said Kitty, with the air of one
solving a mystery, "that is what the man was doing--_quoting_! Burns,
probably, or Scott, perhaps. How clever of him to think of it! And do
you know," she continued, "he said such a nice thing to me. While you
were bear-fighting with the Twins after lunch, Adrian, I said to him:
'Pity me, Mr Fordyce! My husband never ceases to express to me his
regret that he did not marry one of my sisters.' And he answered at
once, quite seriously, without stopping to think it out or anything:--'I
am sure, Mrs Inglethwaite, that his regret must be shared by countless
old admirers of yours!' Wasn't it rather sweet of him?"
Further conversation was prevented by the opening of the drawing-room
door, where the butler appeared and announced "Mr Dubberley."
Dubberley is a pillar of our party. I can best describe him by saying
that although I hold office under a Conservative Government, ten
minutes' conversation with Dubberley leaves me a confirmed Radical, and
anything like a protracted interview with him converts me into a
Socialist for the next twenty-four hours. A week-end in his society, and
I should probably buy a red shirt and send out for bombs. He is a good
fellow at bottom, and of immense service to the party; but he is the
most blatant ass I have ever met. There are Dubberleys on both sides of
the House, however, which is a comfort.
Robin joined us almost directly after Dubberley's entrance, just in time
to hear that great man conclude the preamble of his discourse for the
afternoon.
There had been a good deal of talk in the papers of late about improving
the means of transport throughout the country; and the nationalisation
of railways and other semi-socialistic schemes had filled the air.
Dubberley, it appeared, had out of his own gigantic intellect evolved a
panacea for congestion of traffic, highness of rates, and railway
mortality.
He was well launched in his subject when Robin entered and was
introduced.
"As I was saying," he continued, waving an emphatic teaspoon in the
direction of the sofa where the ladies sat, smiling but limp,--even the
Twins knew it was useless to stem this tide,--"as I was saying, the
solution of the problem lies in the revival of our far-reaching but
sadly neglected system of _canals_. Yes! If we go to the very root of
the matter"--Dubberley is one of those fortunate persons who never has
to dig far in his researches--"we find that our whole hope of
regeneration lies in the single, simple, homely word--Canals! Revive
your canals, send your goods by canal, travel yourself by----"
"How long, Mr Dubberley," interpolated Robin, leaning forward--"how long
do you consider one would take to travel, say, a hundred miles by
canal?"
"Under our present antiquated system, sir,"--Dubberley rather prides
himself on preserving the courtly fashions of address of a bygone
age,--"an impossibly long time. The average speed of a canal-boat at the
present day under the ministrations of that overburdened and inadequate
quadruped, the--er--horse, is three miles per hour. Indeed--one moment!"
Dubberley fished a sheaf of documents out of his pocket--he is the sort
of man who habitually secrets statistics and blue-books about his
person--and after stertorously perusing them closed his eyes for a
moment, as if to work out a sum upon an internal blackboard, and said--
"I see no reason why swift canal-boats should not be constructed to run
fifteen, twenty, or even twenty-five miles per hour. Indeed, in these
days of turbines----"