Mrs. Aldwinkle drew back, pained. “I don’t know why you should think the idea so impossibly comic,” she said.
“Perhaps he has other work to do,” said Mr. Falx out of the darkness. “More important work.” And at the sound of that thrilling, deep, prophetical voice Lord Hovenden felt that, indeed, he had.
“More important?” queried Mrs. Aldwinkle. “But can anything be more important? When one thinks of Flaubert….” One thought of Flaubert—working through all a fifty-four hour week at a relative clause. But Mrs. Aldwinkle was too enthusiastic to be able to say what followed when one had thought of Flaubert.
“Think of coal-miners for a change,” said Mr. Falx in answer. “That’s what I suggest.”
“Yes,” Lord Hovenden agreed, gravely nodding. A lot of his money came from coal. He felt particularly responsible for miners when he had time to think of them.
“Think,” said Mr. Falx in his deep voice; and he relapsed into a silence more eloquently prophetical than any speech.
For a long time nobody spoke. The wind came draughtily and in ever chillier gusts. Irene clasped her arms still tightlier over her breast; she shivered, she yawned with cold. Mrs. Aldwinkle felt the shaking of the young body that leaned against her knees. She herself was cold too; but after what she had said to Cardan and the others it was impossible for her to go indoors yet awhile. She felt, in consequence, annoyed with Irene for shivering. “Do stop,” she said crossly. “It’s only a stupid habit. Like a little dog that shivers even in front of the fire.”
“All ve same,” said Lord Hovenden, coming to Irene’s defence, “it is getting raver cold.”
“Well, if you find it so,” retorted Mrs. Aldwinkle, with overwhelming sarcasm, “you’d better go in and ask them to light a fire.”
It was nearly midnight before Mrs. Aldwinkle finally gave the word to go indoors.