“Dear Jim,” she said, “do you think you had better smoke in here? Mrs. Osborne may not like it.”
“Oh, she will think it is you,” said Jim calmly, “and so won’t dare to say anything. She fears you: I can’t think why. Now do tell me how it all strikes you. Can you bear it for three days? I can easily; I could bear it for months and years. It is so comfortable. Now what did you and Mrs. Osborne talk about at dinner? Mr. O. and I talked about the Royal Family. Sir Thomas seems a nice man, doesn’t he?”
Lady Austell gave him a very generous share of her half melon; it looked rather like a bribe. She was going to indulge in what Jim called humbug, and hoped he would let it pass.
“I think, dear, as I said to Dora the other day,” she remarked, “that we are far too apt to judge by the surface. We do not take enough account of the real and sterling virtues—honesty, kindness, hospitality—”
Austell cracked his egg.
“I did not take enough account of the effect of hospitality last night,” he remarked, “because I ate too much supper, and felt uncommonly queer when I awoke this morning——”
“You always were rather greedy, my darling,” said Lady Austell softly, scoring one.
“I know. I suppose I inherited it from my deli—I mean cerebral-hæmorrhage grandfather. But I don’t drink.”
This brought them about level. Jim proceeded with a smart and telling stroke.
“I refer my—my failures to my grandfather,” he said, “so whatever you say about our hosts, dear mother, I shall consider that you are only speaking of their previous generations. Their hospitality is unbounded, their kindness prodigious, but I asked you how long you could stand it? Or perhaps the—the polish, the culture, the breeding of our hosts really does seem to you beyond question. Did you see the stuffed crocodile-lizard in the hall? I will give you one for your birthday.”