Unchanged for fifteen hundred year...”
He repeated the lines to himself, and was desolated to think of all the murdered past.
CHAPTER XIX.
Henry Wimbush’s long cigar burned aromatically. The “History of Crome” lay on his knee; slowly he turned over the pages.
“I can’t decide what episode to read you to-night,” he said thoughtfully. “Sir Ferdinando’s voyages are not without interest. Then, of course, there’s his son, Sir Julius. It was he who suffered from the delusion that his perspiration engendered flies; it drove him finally to suicide. Or there’s Sir Cyprian.” He turned the pages more rapidly. “Or Sir Henry. Or Sir George...No, I’m inclined to think I won’t read about any of these.”
“But you must read something,” insisted Mr. Scogan, taking his pipe out of his mouth.
“I think I shall read about my grandfather,” said Henry Wimbush, “and the events that led up to his marriage with the eldest daughter of the last Sir Ferdinando.”
“Good,” said Mr. Scogan. “We are listening.”