“I can’t tell you how glad I am to get back.”
“You look all the better for your trip. But you must take care and not overdo it again. It’s bad policy.”
“It is almost impossible not to.”
“But those committees and meetings and things” (she smiled), “surely they might be cut down?”
“They are often very useful, indirectly, to a man in my position,” answered Reuben, who had no intention of saying anything cynical.
There was a good deal of genuine benevolence in his nature, and an almost insatiable energy.
He took naturally to the modern forms of philanthropy: the committees, the classes, the concerts and meetings. He found indeed that they had their uses, both social and political; higher motives for attending them were not wanting; and he liked them for their own sake besides. Out-door sports he detested; the pleasures of dancing he had exhausted long ago; the practice of philanthropy provided a vent for his many-sided energies.
The tuning had come to an end by now, and the musicians had taken up their position.
Immediately silence fell upon the little audience, broken only by the click of counters, the crackle of a bank-note in the room beyond; and the sound of Ernest’s solitaire balls as they dropped into their holes.
Mrs. Leuniger, at the first notes of the tuning, had stolen in and taken up a position near the door; Esther had moved to a further corner of the room, where she lay buried in a deep lounge.