"Let us hope that I shall not be driven out of my new living by being too—ah—broad."
His wife did not realize that he was being droll and had drawn down her lips to an expression of pained sympathy, when she saw the others all laughing and Laurence smiling his acknowledgments; her desperate effort to change the contours of her face before Laurence noticed her failure to respond sensibly gave the impression that she had nearly swallowed a loose tooth.
"Perhaps you'd like me to bring up your tea, dear, so that you won't be disturbed?" she suggested.
"Ah, tea ..." murmured Laurence. "Let me see. It's now a quarter-past two. Tea is at half-past four. I will come down for half an hour. That will give me a clear two hours before dinner. If I allow a quarter of an hour for arranging my table, that will give me four hours in all. Perhaps considering my strenuous morning four hours will be enough for the first day. I don't like the notion of working after dinner," he added to John.
"No?" queried John, doubtfully. He had hoped that his brother-in-law would feel inspired by the port: it was easy enough to avoid him in the afternoon, especially since on the first occasion that he had been taken for a drive in the new dogcart he had evidently been imbued with a detestation of driving that would probably last for the remainder of his life; in fact he was talking already of wanting to sell Primrose and the vicarage chaise.
"Though of course on some evenings I may not be able to help it," added Laurence. "I may have to work."
"Of course you may," John assented, encouragingly. "I dare say there'll be evenings when the mere idea of waiting even for coffee will make you fidgety. You mustn't lose the mood, you know."
"No, of course, I appreciate that."
"There's nothing so easily lost as the creative gift, Balzac said."
"Did he?" Laurence murmured, anxiously. "But I promise you I shall let nothing interfere with me if—" the conjunction fizzed from his mouth like soda from a syphon, "if I'm in the—ah—mood. The mood—yes—ah—precisely." His brow began to lower; the mood was upon him; and everybody stole quietly from the room. They had scarcely reached the head of the stairs when the door opened again and Laurence called after Edith: "I should prefer that whoever brings me news of tea merely knocks without coming in. I shall assume that a knock upon my door means tea. But I don't wish anybody to come in."