Again Colin’s fingers twitched with dislike. Why should he at this moment be sitting here with this boring old man with his tremulous hand and his plastered hair, who couldn’t think of ever leaving Stanier? He might be assisted to think of it....
“Couldn’t you indeed?” he said. “Why, of course, that settles it, doesn’t it? Let me fill your glass for you.”
Ronald made a clumsy feint of putting his hand over the bowl.
“No, upon my word, not a drop more,” he said.
Colin inserted the lip of the decanter between his glass and the covering hand, and filled it up again.
“Of course that settles it,” he repeated.
This reiterated observation seemed to give Ronald food for thought. He began to see that Colin might be speaking ironically; he did sometimes. But his glass was full again, and it was wiser not to pursue an uncomfortable topic at a convivial hour. Better to be genial and companionable.
“And if you haven’t filled up my glass again!” he said. “Well, Stanier was always a hospitable house, and very worthily, my dear fellow, you carry on the tradition.”
Colin got up. Uncle Ronald’s little doxology might be brought to bear on the hospitality he had enjoyed for so many years.
“Kind of you to say so, but I have my limits,” he observed. “Perhaps you had better finish your wine, Uncle Ronald, or we shall have my grandmother back looking for you. You mustn’t leave her, as you said just now.”