And there you have Mr. Victor Stanworth, at present of Layton Court, in the county of Hertfordshire. A man, you would say (and as Roger himself was saying in amazed perplexity less than an hour later), without a single care in the world.
But it is already ten minutes since the breakfast gong sounded; and if we wish to see for ourselves what sort of people Mr. Stanworth had collected round him, it is quite time that we were making a move towards the dining room.
Alec and Barbara were there already: the former with a puzzled, hurt expression, that hinted plainly enough at the inexplicable disaster which had just overtaken his wooing; the latter so resolutely natural as to be quite unnatural. Roger, strolling in just behind them, had noted their silence and their strained looks, and was prepared to smoothe over anything in the way of a tiff with a ceaseless flow of nonsense. Roger was perfectly well aware of the value of nonsense judiciously applied.
“Morning, Barbara,” he said cheerfully. Roger made a point of calling all unmarried ladies below the age of thirty by their Christian names after a day or two’s acquaintance; it agreed with his reputation for bohemianism, and it saved trouble. “Going to be an excellent day, I fancy. Shall I hack some ham for you, or do you feel like a boiled egg? You do? It’s a curious feeling, isn’t it?”
Barbara smiled faintly. “Thank you, Mr. Sheringham,” she said, lifting the cosies off an array of silver that stood at one end of the table. “Shall I give you tea or coffee?”
“Coffee, please. Tea with breakfast is like playing Stravinsky on a mouth organ. It doesn’t go. Well, what’s the programme to-day? Tennis from eleven to one; from two to four tennis; between five and seven a little tennis; and after dinner talk about tennis. Something like that?”
“Don’t you like tennis, Mr. Sheringham?” asked Barbara innocently.
“Like it? I love it. One of these days I must get someone to teach me how to play it. What are you doing this morning, for instance, Alec?”
“I’ll tell you what I’m not doing,” Alec grinned, “and that’s playing tennis with you.”
“And why not, you ungrateful blighter, after all I’ve done for you?” demanded Roger indignantly.