"I see," said Crowther, adding with his quiet smile: "There seems to be plenty of time anyhow in the old country, whatever else she may be short of."
Piers laughed as he lifted his glass. "Time for everything but work, Crowther. She has developed beastly loose morals in her old age. Some day there'll come a nasty bust up, and she may pull herself together and do things again, or she may go to pieces. I wonder which."
"I don't," said Crowther.
"You don't?" Piers paused, glass in hand, looking at him expectantly.
"No, I don't." Crowther also raised his glass; he looked Piers straight in the eyes. "Here's to the boys of England, Piers!" he said. "They'll see to it that she comes through."
Sir Beverley also drank, but with a distasteful air. "You've a higher opinion of the young fools than I have," he remarked.
"I've made a study of the breed, sir," said Crowther.
The conversation drifted to indifferent matters, but Piers' interest remained keen. It seemed that all his vitality had reawakened at the coming of this slow-speaking man who had looked so long upon the wide spaces of the earth that his vision seemed scarcely adaptable to lesser things. There was that in his personality that caught Piers' fancy irresistibly. Perhaps it was his utter calmness, his unvarying, rock-like strength. Perhaps it was just the good fellowship that looked out of the steady eyes and sounded in every tone of the leisurely voice. Whatever the cause, his presence had made a vast difference to Piers. His boredom had completely vanished. He even forgot to wonder if there were a letter lying waiting for him inside the hotel.
Crowther excused himself at length and rose to take his leave, whereupon Sir Beverley very abruptly, and to his grandson's surprise and gratification, invited him to dine with them that night. Piers at once seconded the invitation, and Crowther without haste or hesitation accepted it.
Then, square and purposeful, he went away.