Having arrived at the house, they found no one but Pilcher to receive them. Mrs. Ansley had gone out to tea; Mr. Guy had left word for Miss Hildred to bring Mr. Tom to the club, where he was playing tennis.
"Do you care to go?"
Knowing that he couldn't spend three weeks in Dublin without facing this invitation, he had decided in advance to accept it the first time it came.
"If you go."
"All right; let's. But you'd like first to go to your room, wouldn't you? Pilcher, take Mr. Whitelaw up. I'll wait here with the car. We'll start as soon as you come down." Running up the stairs, he wondered whether it would be the proper thing for him to change to his new white flannels, when, as if divining his perplexity, she called after him. "Come just as you are. Don't stop to put on other things. I'll go as I am too."
This maternal foresight was again on guard as they turned from the road into the driveway to the club.
"Do you want to come and be introduced to a lot of people, or would you rather browse about by yourself? You can do whichever you like."
He replied with a suggestion. As a good many cars would be parked in the narrow space of the club avenues, he thought she had better jump out at the club steps, leaving him to find a space where the car could stand. He would hang around there till Guy's game was over and the party was ready to go home.
Having parked the car, he was in with the chauffeurs, some of whom were old acquaintances. True to his formula, he went about among them, shaking hands, and asking for their news. They were oddly alike, not only in their dustcoats and chauffeurs' caps, but in features and cast of mind.
"You got a job?" he was asked in his turn.