The freshening up in the lavatory of the Bachelors' Club meant some little time and delicacy of touch. He had to be careful how he washed his face, for he had taken pains with it. Certainly the effect was admirable; for the least touch of rouge on the cheek-bone, and positively only the shadow of an antimony pencil below his eyes had given his face the freshness of a boy's. He looked at himself quite candidly in the glass, and said, "Not a day more than twenty-five." For he was no friend of false modesty, and any modesty he might have assumed about himself would have been undeniably false.
All this care for one's appearance, it is true, made a terrible hole in one's time; but if it lengthened one's youth, it was an excellent investment of hours. There was nothing that could weigh against that paramount consideration. He dried his hands, still looking at himself, and put on his rings. A touch of the hairbrush was necessary, and for his hands the file of the nail-scissors. Then he put on his coat again and went into the hall. Jack Conybeare was in the act of coming out of the smoking-room.
Ted had only a short moment for reflection, and almost without a pause he went on, meeting Jack.
"Good-evening, Jack," he said; "are you coming to the Tauntons'? Kit is in the country still, is she not?"
Jack had stopped on seeing him, and looked him over slowly from head to heel; then he walked by him without speaking, and went out.
Ted was only a little amused, and more than a little annoyed. Just now it did not matter much what Jack did, but, being wise in his generation, he did not care about being cut by anybody. The Conybeares would probably pick up again in a year or two, and to be cut by the master of quite one of the nicest houses in London was a bore. Besides, he was in an acme of good-fellowship after his amusing day.
He went on into the smoking-room to look round before proceeding to his dance. Toby was still sitting in the window where Jack had left him. Since their reconciliation a day or two before, Ted had felt most friendly towards him, and he went delicately across the room to him, looking charming.
"I just met Jack in the hall," he said; "he looks terribly tired and old."
Toby bristled like a large collie dog.