Mrs. Aldwinkle sighed and resumed her climbing. “What a queer fellow Calamy is, don’t you think?” she said, addressing herself to Miss Thriplow. Mrs. Aldwinkle, who liked discussing other people’s characters and who prided herself on her perspicacity and her psychological intuition, found almost everybody “queer,” even, when she thought it worth while discussing her, little Irene. She liked to think that every one she knew was tremendously complicated; had strange and improbable motives for his simplest actions, was moved by huge, dark passions; cultivated secret vices; in a word, was larger than life and a good deal more interesting. “What did you think of him, Mary?”
“Very intelligent,” thought Miss Thriplow.
“Oh, of course, of course,” Mrs. Aldwinkle agreed almost impatiently; that wasn’t anything much to talk about. “But one hears odd stories of his amorous tastes, you know.” The party halted at the door of Mrs. Aldwinkle’s room. “Perhaps that was one of the reasons,” she went on mysteriously, “why he went travelling all that time—right away from civilisation.…” On such a theme a conversation might surely be almost indefinitely protracted; the moment for uttering the final, fatal good-night had not yet come.
Downstairs in the great saloon the three men were sitting over their red wine. Mr. Cardan had already twice refilled his glass. Calamy was within sight of the bottom of his first tumbler; young Lord Hovenden’s was still more than half full. He was not a very accomplished drinker and was afraid of being sick if he swallowed too much of this young and generous brew.
“Bored, you’re just bored. That’s all it is,” Mr. Cardan was saying. He looked at Calamy over the top of his glass and took another sip, as though to his health. “You haven’t met any one of late who took your fancy; that’s all. Unless, of course, it’s a case of catarrh in the bile ducts.”
“It’s neither,” said Calamy, smiling.
“Or perhaps it’s the first great climacteric. You don’t happen to be thirty-five, I suppose? Five times seven—a most formidable age. Though not quite so serious as sixty-three. That’s the grand climacteric.” Mr. Cardan shook his head. “Thank the Lord, I got past it without dying, or joining the Church of Rome, or getting married. Thank the Lord; but you?”
“I’m thirty-three,” said Calamy.
“A most harmless time of life. Then it’s just boredom. You’ll meet some little ravishment and all the zest will return.”
Young Lord Hovenden laughed in a very ventriloquial, man-of-the-worldly fashion.