Cecil was not surprised to find his uncle sitting in his smoking-room, smoking, and not reading the morning paper. He was looking over his collection of old coins. At a glance he saw by Cecil's excessive quietness that the boy, as he called him, was perturbed, so he talked about the coins for some minutes.
Cecil made little attempt to conceal that fact that Things bored him.
'Well, what is it?' said Lord Selsey abruptly.
Cecil couldn't think of anything better by way of introducing the trouble than the vaguely pessimistic statement that everything was rather rotten.
'You don't gamble, you're not even very hard up…. It's a woman, of course,' said Lord Selsey, 'and you want to marry, I suppose, or you wouldn't come to me about it…. Who is she?'
Cecil gave a rough yet iridescent sketch of Mrs Raymond.
'Of course she's older than I am, but it doesn't make the slightest difference. She's been a widow ever since she was twenty. She's very hard up, and she doesn't care. She's refused me, but I want to make her come round…. No, she isn't pretty, not very.'
Lord Selsey put his old coins away, and leant back in his chair.
'I should like to see her,' he said thoughtfully.
'I'm sure of one thing, uncle you could never have any vulgar, commonplace ideas about her—I mean, she's so peculiarly disinterested, and all that sort of thing. You mustn't fancy she's a dangerous syren, don't you know, or…. For instance, she doesn't care much for dress; she just sticks up her hair anyhow, and parts it in the middle.'