That was not exactly wisdom out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, since Uncle Alf was a very old man, but it was a sort of elementary wisdom which a child might have hit on. And she felt that below the surface of this wizened, crabbed little old man there was something that was human. She had never suspected it before: in her shallowness she had been content to look upon him as a mask with a money-bag. To be sure, he was devoted to Claude: she had not even reckoned with what that implied, not given him credit for the power of feeling affection.
“I believe you are right,” she said.
“And when you’re as old as me, my dear, you will know it,” said he. “Lord, I’ve had a lot of amusement out of life—digging for it, you understand, not picking it up. Poor old Eddie amuses me more than I can say. Why, his hair is turning gray with success and pleasure.”
“Ah, not a word against him,” said Dora; “he’s the kindest Dad that ever lived.”
“I daresay; but there are things to laugh at in poor old Eddie, thank God. He and his Grote, and his Park Lane, and all! Did you ever see such a set-out, my dear? But Eddie in Venice must have been a shade finer yet. Tell me about it. He and Maria on the Grand Canal, and you and Claude; all in the same gondola, I’ll be bound, so as to make a family party. ‘This is the way we English go,’ good Lord. I wouldn’t have been your gondoliers on a hot day, not even for the entertainment of seeing you all like Noah’s Ark. Your gondoliers were thin men that evening, my dear, poor devils!”
Alfred had guessed the situation with the unerring eye of cynical malice, and his words brought the scene back to Dora with amazing accuracy. That day had depressed her at the time; she had never guessed how funny it was; and here she was laughing at it now, when it was a month old!
Alfred continued:
“Eddie among the pictures, too,” he said. “A bull in a china shop would have been more suitably housed! Why, I nearly came out myself in order to see the fun. ‘What a holy look there’s about that, Maria,’ he’d say; or, ‘My, I don’t believe it would go into the gallery at Grote unless you took the roof off.’ And he wrote to me yesterday that he had bought a copy of that housemaid among the clouds by Titian—what a daub, my dear!—with a frame to match!”
It was too much for Uncle Alfred, and he gave a series of little squeaks on a very high note, shaking his head.
“Eddie’s a silly man,” he said; “a very silly man is poor old Eddie, and he gets sillier as he gets older. What does he want with his Assumption of the Virgin and his six powdered footmen? What good do they do him? As little as my liniment does me. Lord, my dear, he says something too in his letter that makes me think they’re going to make a peer of him. He hints it: ah, I wish I’d kept the letter; but it made me feel sick, and I threw it away. But Eddie a peer, my dear. And I saw in a leader in the Times the other day that the Prime Minister hadn’t got a sense of humour! I reckon they’ll sack that leader writer if it’s true that Eddie’s going to have a peerage! Lord deliver us: Lord Saucepan: let’s think of half a dozen names and send some picture post cards of Venice to Lord Saucepan, care of Mr. Osborne, Park Lane; Lord Lavatory, Lord Kitchen-sink. Fancy Per too, an honourable, and Mrs. Per. My dear, I hate that woman worse than poison. I should like to smack her face. She thinks she’s a lady, and Maria thinks she’s a lady. Why, Maria’s more of a lady herself—and that’s not saying much. To see Mrs. Per and you talking together about art or acting would make a cat laugh. I wonder at your marrying Claude when you thought of his relations.”