"Yes; only once. Why?"
"Nothing. Halloo! I hear wheels. That must be my uncle. Turn the hot water off, there's a good chap. I must just see him before I come upstairs."
[CHAPTER II]
THE COMING OF THE LUCK
The dining room at Vail was of the same antique spaciousness as the hall, and, as there on the lounger, so here on the diner, looked down a spacious company of ancestors. For so small a party it had been thought by the butler that conviviality would be given a better chance if, on this frosty night, he laid them a small table within range of the fire rather than that the three should be cut off, as it were, on a polar island in the centre of that vast sea of floor. And, indeed, though naturally a modest man, Templeton felt a strong self-approval at the success of his kind thought, for, from the moment of sitting down, a cheerful merriness had held the table, rising sometimes into loud hilarity, and never sinking into the content of growing repletion, which is held in England to be the proper equivalent for joviality. But if it was Templeton in part who was responsible for so desirable an atmosphere, there was credit to be given to at least one of the diners.
Pleasant and pink was Mr. Francis's face; his hair, though silver, still crisp and vigorous, his mouth a perpetual smile. In absolute repose even a sunshine lingered there, as in a bottle of well-matured wine, and its repose left it but to give place to laughter. All dinner through he had been the mouthpiece of delightful anecdote, of observations shrewd but always kindly, rising sometimes almost to the dry levels of wit, and never failing in that genial humour without which all conversation, not directed to a definite end, becomes intolerable. Though talking much, he was no usurper of the inalienable right of the others to wag the tongue; and though his own wagged to vibration, he was never tedious. Even in the matter of riddles, introduced by Geoffrey, he had a contribution or two to make, of so extravagant a sort that this ordinarily dismal mode of entertainment was for the moment rendered delightful. He unbent to the level of the young men, to the futility of most disconnected conversation, without ever seeming to unbend; you would have said that his narrow, clerically opening shirt, with its large cravat and massive gold studs, covered the heart of a boy, that the brains of a clever youth lay beneath that silver hair, prematurely white, indeed, yet not from grief or the conduct of a world long unkind. In person he was somewhat short, "without the inches of a Vail," as he himself said, and pleasantly inclined to stoutness, but to the stoutness which may come early to a healthy appetite and a serene digestion, for it was not accompanied either by pallid flabbiness or colour unduly high, and by the artificial light scarcely a wrinkle could be scrutinized on his beaming face. His dress was precise and scrupulous, yet with a certain antique touch about it, as of one who had been something of a buck in the sixties; his linen far more than clean and fresh, and of a snowiness which certainly implied special injunction to the washerwoman. His trouser pockets were cut, we may elegantly say, not at the side of those indispensable coverings, but toward the front of the bow window, and there dangled from the lip of one a fob of heavy gold seals. His watch chain he wore round his neck, and at the bottom of his waistcoat pocket there reposed, you may be sure, a yellow-faced watch, large and loud-ticking—an unerring timekeeper.
They had now approached the end of dinner; decanters glowed on the table, and a silver cigarette box, waiting untouched, at Mr. Francis's request, till the more serious business of wine was off the palate, stood by Harry's dessert plate. Already, even in this second hour of their acquaintance, the three felt like old friends, and as the wine was on its first round, the two young men were bent eagerly forward to hear the conclusion of a most exciting little personal anecdote told them by Mr. Francis. He had to perfection that great essential of the narrator—intense interest and appreciation of what he was himself saying, and the climax afforded him the most obvious satisfaction. In his right hand he held his first glass of untasted port, and, after an interval accorded to laughter, he suddenly rose.
"And," he said, "comes the pleasantest moment of our delightful evening. Harry, my dear boy, here is long life and happiness to you, from the most sincere of your well-wishers. And for myself I pray that a very old man may some time dance your children on his knee. God bless you, my dearest fellow!"