"Will you have some of this?" Mr. Ramsey's voice protruded through the silence. Several eyes turned toward him as if he were about to take up the burden of the talk. Mrs. Basine interrupted quickly.
"What was that book you told me about, Mr. Gilchrist, last month?" she asked. Aubrey looked up inquiringly. "I mean your father."
The elder Gilchrist blinked and seemed to peer into the depths of his memory.
"I don't remember," he said clearing his throat. They were the first words he had spoken since he had said, "Thank you ... thank you...." and sat down in a corner of the Basine library. His wife stared at him as if he were a phenomenon unexpectedly revealed to her gaze.
"It must have been," stammered Mr. Gilchrist, "Suetonius, I think. Or ... or the Chevalier de Boufflers...."
"I'm sure that was it," Mrs. Basine agreed. "I must get that to read."
The judge frowned disapprovingly upon the elder Gilchrist. He resented readers. Culture was a state of soul acquired by being a gentleman, not by reading books. He resented also the impression Aubrey had left during the Annexation discussion.
As a matter of fact he felt sleepy, the result of the food he had eaten. And he was automatically seeking for some occasion which would warrant an expression of dignity or resentment or anything in which he might hide his heaviness of spirit.
The sight of his daughter regarding Aubrey with a sweet, prim attentiveness supplied him with what he desired. The idea of Henrietta marrying that fool was annoying. Old Gilchrist was a sly dog and his wife a difficult woman. He would forbid the thing. It might hurt Henrietta for a time but he knew what was good for her. A mere story writer had no real standing in the community, no future. Whereas—Basine.... He lowered his eyes and glowered at his plate.... Nice young man. Honorable. And full of promise ... promise....