There was room for a little more of his policy of opposition.
“Well, now, Brighton,” he said. “Why not Brighton? There’s a club there; I dare say I should get a little Bridge in the evening, and no doubt you would pick up some acquaintances, Amy. I think the Westbournes went there last year.”
This remarkable reason for going to Brighton made Mrs. Ames almost epigrammatic.
“And then we could go on to Margate,” she remarked, “and curry favour there.”
“By all means, my dear,” said he. “I dare say the curry would be quite inexpensive.”
Mrs. Ames opened the door on to the verandah.
“Pray let me know, Lyndhurst,” she said, “if you have any serious proposition to make.”
It was Major Ames’ custom to start work in the garden immediately after breakfast, but this morning he got out one of his large-sized cheroots instead (these conduced to meditation), and established himself in a chair on the verandah. His mental development was not, in most regards, of a very high or complex order, but he possessed that rather rare attainment of being able to sit down and think about one thing to the exclusion of others. With most of us to sit down and think about one thing soon resolves itself into a confused survey of most other things; Major Ames could do better than that, for he could, and on this occasion did exclude all other topics from his mind, and at the end return, so to speak, “bringing his sheaves with him.” He had made a definite and reasonable plan.
Harry had communicated the interesting fact of his passion for Mrs. Evans to the Omar Khayyam Club, and was, of course, bound to prosecute his nefarious intrigue. He had already written several galloping lyrics, a little loose in grammar and rhyme, to his enchantress, which he had copied into a small green morocco note-book, the title-page of which he had inscribed as “Dedicated to M. E.” This looked a Narcissus-like proceeding to any one who did not remember what Mrs. Evans’ initials were. This afternoon, feeling the poetic afflatus blowing a gale within him, but having nothing definite to say, he decided to call on the inspirer of his muse, in order to gather fresh fuel for his fire. Arrayed in a very low collar, which showed the full extent of his rather scraggy neck, and adorned with a red tie, for socialism was no less an orthodoxy in the club than atheistic principles and illicit love, he set secretly out, and had the good fortune to find the goddess alone, and was welcomed with that rather timid, childlike deference that he had found so adorable before.
“But how good of you to come and see me,” she said, “when I’m sure you must have so many friends wanting you. I think it is so kind.”