She put them on and looked at Mr. Pithey, and Mr. Pithey looked at her.
“Pleased to meet you,” he said. “Do you always take a pack of dogs about with you?” Plainly Mr. Pithey disapproved. Jock and Jinny, father and mother of the family, were moving in an unfriendly manner round his feet. “Just call them off, will you?”
Mr. Fothersley awaited the swift and complete annihilation of Mr. Pithey. It was a matter of doubt if even Lady Condor could have accomplished it; at any rate, she made no attempt. She continued to look at him with what might almost be described as appreciation in her shrewd eyes under their heavy lids. Only she did not call the dogs off.
And then, to an amazed company of the Mentmore élite, she gave Mr. Pithey her whole and undivided attention for the space of nearly half an hour.
Mr. Pithey gave his opinion as it was always apparently his pride and pleasure to do, on many and various things.
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,” might have served for the text of Mr. Pithey’s conversation.
“Who’s been at the head of affairs in this village I don’t know,” he said largely, “but more rotten management, more want of enterprise, more lack of ordinary sense, I’ve never come across. Why, you see it everywhere! Here’s the whole place without any light, unless you call lamps and candles light, and a stream running through the place. Water power at your doors, by Jingo! And money in it too, or I shouldn’t be taking it up. Ever been in Germany?” He gulped down his third cup of tea, and looked around at his now more or less interested audience.
“Well, they’ve got electric light in every potty little village you go to, got it there still at this minute, and”—Mr. Pithey laid a large yellow hand on Lady Condor’s knee—“cheaper than you can get it over here.”
“One really can’t believe it!” exclaimed Mrs. North. “Surely it’s not possible!”
“Everything is possible,” said Lady Condor, curiously examining Mr. Pithey’s hand through her glasses.