He peered at the modern daughter from behind the Times, and recognised in her grey eyes (with as much gratification as such meetings usually afford us) a lifelong friend. It was his own hereditary obstinacy.
Sylvia went to the door, then turned round and said a shade apologetically—
"You see, darling, it seems such a wicked waste! Surely the money might be better spent! On—on the unemployed, or something. Why, the other day he sent a thing from Gerard's so enormous that it came quite alone in a van; and another came in a four-wheeler. And I wasn't rude, you know—I kept it."
"I don't quite follow you, my dear. You kept what? The cab?"
"No, the flowers. And I must say it is a pleasure to go and give one's orders now! The kitchen is like a fête at the Botanical Gardens."
Sir James frowned absently, pretending to be suddenly absorbed in the paper until she had gone away, and shut the door. Then he put down the Times carefully, and shook with laughter, comfortably to himself, as he only laughed when alone. His daughter's way of receiving homage was very much to his taste.
At the door of the little restaurant in King Street, waiting for him, Woodville found Ridokanaki.
Slight and thin as he was, with his weary, drooping grey moustache, he looked always rather unusual and distinguished. He had black, wrinkled, heavy-lidded eyes, in which Sylvia had discovered a remarkable resemblance to the eyes of a parrot, though the fire in them was very far from being extinguished. He wore a gay light red carnation, but the flowerless Woodville looked far more festive. Woodville's enjoyment of nearly all experiences which were not absolutely depressing was greater than ever since his life of self-repression. To dine alone with the great Ridokanaki on the brink of some kind of sentimental crisis was to him a kind of intellectual, almost a literary joy, one which Sylvia could never either share or understand.
Ridokanaki received him with his most courteous manner. Ridokanaki, like most people, had two remarkably different manners. In society, he had a certain flowery formality, a conventional empressement, that, though far from being English, was absolutely different from the geniality of the German, from French tact and bonhomie, and from the Italian grace. It is a manner I have noticed chiefly in Scotchmen and in modern Greeks; its origin is, I fancy, a desire to please, of which the root is pride, not mere amiability or vanity, as in the Latin races. As unfortunately, in Ridokanaki's case, it entirely lacked charm, people simply found him tedious; especially women. On the other hand, in business or, indeed, in anything really serious, Ridokanaki was quite royally frank, and natural as a child; considering not at all the feelings of other people and consequently irritating them very little. He had a supreme contempt for petty diplomacy in such matters, regarding it as only worthy of a commercial traveller. His absolute reliability and brutal frankness had made him personally liked in the City, in spite of his phenomenal success—a success that had led to an importance not merely social, but political, and almost historical. Those who saw him in this blunt mood, found him, for the first time, amusing. All really frank people are amusing, and would remain so if they could remember that other people may sometimes want to be frank and amusing too.