"Oh, nothing," answered Brett, "only a bit of paper."
Just then Simon Darche entered the room and all rose to go in to luncheon together.
The old gentleman shook hands with Dolly and with both the men, looking keenly into their faces, but mentioning no names. He was cheerful and ruddy, and a stranger might have expected his conversation to be enlivening. In this however, he would have been egregiously disappointed.
"What have you been doing this morning?" asked Mrs. Darche turning to him.
She had asked the question every day for years, whenever she had lunched at home.
"Very busy, very busy," answered Mr. Darche.
His hands did not tremble as he unfolded his napkin, but he seemed to bestow an extraordinary amount of attention on the exact position of the glasses before him, pushing them a little forwards and backwards and glancing at them critically until he was quite satisfied.
"Busy, of course," he said and looked cheerfully round the table. "There is no real happiness except in hard work. If I could only make you understand that, Marion, you would be much happier. Early to bed and early to rise."
"Makes a man stupid and closes his eyes," observed Brett, finishing the proverb in its modern form.
"What, what? What doggerel is that?"