"My dear Lord Taborley! My dear fellow!" The moment he discovered his guest in the doorway he came darting forward. "My dear boy, this is real friendship. We missed you and wanted you so much.
—So you're out of it at last? I mean the khaki."
The little, wrinkled hand with its stubby fingers reached up timidly in an attempt to pat the big breadth of shoulders.
"Yes, I'm out of it, Sir Tobias."
Tabs didn't want to be patted. He was impatient of polite evasions. He foresaw that he was expected to spend the next five minutes in replying to questions which required no answers—all this as a conventional preface to a discussion of the delicate position of Adair and Maisie. But Tabs had his own problem, and one question in particular about a hat on the hall-table that he was burning to ask. They stood staring at each other, the big, fair man and the worn version of Shakespeare, both wondering how long it would be decorous to chatter before they clinched with the vital topic.
"May as well sit down. There's time for a cigarette. Terry——" Sir Tobias made a short-winded attempt to push a second arm-chair into place beside the fire; Tabs achieved the desired end with one lurch of his body. "Terry brought some one in to tea; he's not gone yet. They never know when to go, these New Army fellows. Good at their job, they tell me, but no polish. I suppose I oughtn't to say that—ungrateful of me! But I'm sick of it all, the invasion of the classes, the women in trousers, the beggars on horseback, the Jazz music. I want the old world back—the womanly women, everybody labeled, and Beethoven."
He pushed the cigarette-box fretfully across to Tabs, having first selected one for himself.
"Beethoven," he snorted, "that's what I want, and no bobbed hair and everybody happily married."
"This New Army chap who's with Terry," Tabs paused to make his voice unanxious and ordinary, "does she see much of him? Is she fond of him?"