It was a complete surprise to Mrs. Osborne, and for one moment she felt so shy and confused she hardly knew which way to look. Then she knew, and with her kind blue eyes brimming she smiled at her husband. Everyone drank something, Sir Thomas his complete glass with a hoarse murmur of “no heel-taps”; Mrs. Per a little sip of water (being a teetotaller) with her little finger in exclusive elevation; Lady Austell something at random out of the seven glasses at her right hand, which had all been filled at different periods of dinner without her observing. And Dora, radiant, turned to Claude.
“Old darlings,” she said enthusiastically, and resumed her conversation with Mr. Franklin on her right.
But Claude was not quite pleased with this heartfelt interjection. It was affectionate, loving even, but something more was due to the son of the house. The interjection ought to have been a little more formal and appreciative. It should have saluted the importance and opulence of his parents as well as their kindliness. After all, who had done the house up, and made it habitable?
And then instantaneously this criticism expunged itself from his mind. Dora always said the thing that was uppermost in her mind and “old darlings” was a very good thing to be uppermost.
Harry Franklin and Claude found themselves side by side when, not so very long afterward, the ladies left the room, and Mr. Osborne, glass in hand, went round the table and sat between Austell and Sir Thomas. The others, with the exception of Alfred, who did not stir, but continued sitting where he was at the end of the room far away from door and window, closed up also, and another decanter of the ’40 port was brought.
“And when you’ve given me news of that, Lord Austell and Sir Thomas,” said Mr. Osborne genially, “I warrant there’ll be another to come up from my cellar without leaving it empty neither.”
The prospect seemed to invigorate Sir Thomas, and he emptied and filled his glass. Austell meantime was taken to task by his host for not doing the same, but was courteously firm in his refusal, in spite of Mr. Osborne’s assurance that you could bring up a child on this port without its knowing the meaning of a headache. Harry Franklin and Claude also were not doing their duty, so Mr. Osborne reminded them, but the rest were sufficiently stalwart to satisfy him.
“And the Navron quartette are playing afterward, are they not?” asked Harry. “May told me so.”
Claude frowned slightly.
“Yes, but when they’ll be able to begin, I don’t know,” he said. “When the pater gets somebody to appreciate his port you can’t tell when anything else will begin except another bottle. What I want is a cigarette, and a talk to Dora.”