"I say," Edwin began, in a new intimate tone, when after what seemed a
very long interval Charlie Orgreave returned to the breakfast-room with
the information that for the present all had been done that could be
done.
"What's up?" said Charlie, responding quite eagerly to the appeal for
intimacy in Edwin's voice. He had brought in a tray with whisky and its
apparatus, and he set this handily on a stool in front of the fire, and
poked the fire, and generally made the usual ritualistic preparations
for a comfortable talkative night.
"Rather delicate, wasn't it, you coming down and taking Stirling's case
off him?"
Edwin smiled idly as he lolled far back in an old easy chair. His two
individualities had now merged again into one.
"My boy," Charlie answered, pausing impressively with his curly head
held forward, before dropping into an arm-chair by the stool, "you may
take it from me that `delicate' is not the word!"
Edwin nodded sympathetically, perceiving with satisfaction that beneath
his Metropolitan mannerism, and his amusing pomposities, and his
perfectly dandiacal clothes, Charlie still remained the Sunday, possibly
more naive than ever. This _naivete_ of Charlie's was particularly
pleasing to him, for the reason that it gave him a feeling of
superiority to the more brilliant being and persuaded him that the
difference between London and the provinces was inessential and
negligible. Charlie's hair still curled like a boy's, and he had not
outgrown the _naivete_ of boyhood. Against these facts the fact that
Charlie was a partner in a fashionable and dashing practice at Ealing
simply did not weigh. The deference which in thought Edwin had been
slowly acquiring for this Charlie, as to whom impressive news reached
Bursley from time to time, melted almost completely away. In
fundamentals he was convinced that Charlie was an infant compared to
himself.
"Have a drop?"
"Well, it's not often I do, but I will to-night. Steady on with the
whisky, old chap."
Each took a charged glass and sipped. Edwin, by raising his arm, could
just lodge his glass on the mantelpiece. Charlie then opened his large
gun-metal cigarette case, and one match lighted two cigarettes.
"Yes, my boy," Charlie resumed, as he meditatively blew out the match
and threw it on the fire, "you may well say `delicate.' The truth is
that if I hadn't seen at once that Stirling was a very decent sort of
chap, and very friendly here, I might have funked it. Yes, I might. He
came in just after we'd arrived. So I saw him alone--here. I made a
clean breast of it, and put myself in his hands. Of course he
appreciated the situation at once; and considering he'd never seen _her_,
it was rather clever of him... I suppose people rather like that Scotch
accent of his, down here?"
"They say he makes over a thousand a year already," Edwin replied. He
was thinking. "Is she likely to be coming downstairs? No."
"The deuce he does!" Charlie murmured, with ingenuous animation,
foolishly betraying by an instant's lack of self-control the fact that
Ealing was not Utopia. Envy was in his voice as he continued: "It's
astonishing how some chaps can come along and walk straight into
anything they want--whatever it happens to be!"
"What do you think of him as a doctor?" Edwin questioned.
"Seems all right," said Charlie, with a fine brief effort to be
patronising.
"He's got a great reputation down here," Edwin said quietly.
"Yes, yes. I should say he's quite all right."
------------------------------------------------------------------------