“My dear lady,” he said, “politics is a dirty business now-a-days. We can serve our cause best by living a quiet and dignified life, without ostentation, as you see, but by being gentlemen. It is the silent protest against these socialistic ideas that will tell in the long run. What should I do at Westminster? Upon my soul, if I found myself sitting opposite those Radical louts, it would take me all my time to keep my temper. No, no; let me attend to my garden, and give my friends good dinners,—bless my soul, Amy is letting us have an ice to-night—strawberry ice, I expect; that was why she asked me whether there were plenty of strawberries. Glace de fraises; she likes her menu-cards printed in French, though I am sure ‘strawberry ice’ would tell us all we wanted to know. What’s in a name after all?”
Conversation had already shifted, and Major Ames turned swiftly to a dry-skinned Mrs. Brooks who sat on his left. She was a sad high-church widow who embroidered a great deal. Her dress was outlined with her own embroideries, so, too, were many altar-cloths at the church of St. Barnabas. She and Mrs. Ames had a sort of religious rivalry over its decoration; the one arranged the copious white lilies that crowned the cloth made by the other. Their rivalry was not without silent jealousy, and it was already quite well known that Mrs. Brooks had said that lilies of the valley were quite as suitable as Madonna lilies, which shed a nasty yellow pollen on the altar-cloth. But Madonna lilies were larger; a decoration required fewer “blooms.” In other moods also she was slightly acid.
Mrs. Evans turned slowly to her right, where Harry was sitting. She might almost be supposed to know that she had a lovely neck, at least it was hard to think that she had lived with it for thirty-seven years in complete unconsciousness of it. If she moved her head very quickly, there was just a suspicion of loose skin about it. But she did not move her head very quickly.
“And now let us go on talking,” she said. “Have you told my little girl all about Cambridge? Tell me all about Cambridge too. What fun you must have! A lot of young men together, with no stupid women and girls to bother them. Do you play a great deal of lawn-tennis?”
Harry reconsidered for a moment his verdict concerning the wonderfulness of her. It was hardly happy to talk to a member of the Omar Club about games and the advantages of having no girls about.
“No; I don’t play games much,” he said. “The set I am in don’t care for them.”
She tilted her head a little back, as if asking pardon for her ignorance.
“I didn’t know,” she said. “I thought perhaps you liked games—football, racquets, all that kind of thing. I am sure you could play them beautifully if you chose. Or perhaps you like gardening? I had such a nice talk to your father about flowers. What a lot he knows about them!”
Flowers were better than games, anyhow; Harry put down his spoon without finishing his ice.
“Have you ever noticed what a wonderful colour La France roses turn at twilight?” he asked. “All the shadows between the petals become blue, quite blue.”