“Well, now, I call that downright wicked of you,” he said, “twisting my words about in that way. General, I want your opinion about that glass of champagne. It’s a ’96 wine, and wants drinking.”
The General applied his fish-like mouth to his glass.
“Wants drinking, does it?” he said. “Well, it’ll get it from me. Delicious! Goo’ dry wine.”
Major Ames turned to Millie Evans again.
“Beg your pardon, Mrs. Evans,” he said, “but General Fortescue likes to know what’s before him. Yes, downright wicked of you! I’m sure I wish Amy had asked Dr. Evans to-night, but there—you know what Amy is. She’s got a notion that it will make a pleasanter dinner-table not to ask husband and wife always together. She says it’s done a great deal in London now. But they can’t put on to their tables in London such sweet-peas as I grow here in my bit of a garden. Look at those in front of you. Black Michaels, they are. Look at the size of them. Did you ever see such sweet-peas? I wonder what Amy is going to give us for dinner to-night. Bit of lamb next, is it? and a quail to follow. Hope you’ll go Nap, Mrs. Evans; I must say Amy has a famous cook. And what do you think of us all down at Riseborough, now you’ve had time to settle down and look about you? I daresay you and your husband say some sharp things about us, hey? Find us very stick-in-the-mud after London?”
She gave him one of those shy little deprecating glances that made him involuntarily feel that he was a most agreeable companion.
“Ah, you are being wicked now!” she said. “Every one is delightful. So kind, so hospitable. Now, Major Ames, do tell me more about your flowers. Black Michaels, you said those were. I must go in for gardening, and will you begin to teach me a little? Why is it that your flowers are so much more beautiful than anybody’s? At least, I needn’t ask: it must be because you understand them better than anybody.”
Major Ames felt that this was an uncommonly agreeable woman, and for half a second contrasted her pleasant eagerness to hear about his garden with his wife’s complete indifference to it. She liked flowers on the table, but she scarcely knew a hollyhock from a geranium.
“Well, well,” he said; “I don’t say that my flowers, which you are so polite as to praise, don’t owe something to my care. Rain or fine, I don’t suppose I spend less than an average of four hours a day among them, year in, year out. And that’s better, isn’t it, than sitting at the club, listening to all the gossip and tittle-tattle of the place?”
“Ah, you are like me,” she said. “I hate gossip. It is so dull. Gardening is so much more interesting.”