He encouraged her to relate her conceptions of such a firm: four neat rooms, in one of which the publisher and the author and the agent and the artist sat in beautiful fraternity; in another the paper was made; in a third the book was printed and bound; and in the last, sold over a counter to the amiable purchaser.
"While you wait?" Gareth smiled whimsically. "I'm afraid it's not quite so compact...."
He endeavoured to explain the process; but natural denseness and a stitch in her side made of Trixie an inattentive listener. And Gareth was oppressed by the consciousness that he was carrying more than his fair share of the picnic burden; two heavy rugs and the big earthenware teapot....
Miss Emmeline Frazer walked in frigid silence beside her companion. He had shocked her—had just shocked her very considerably by using a word that in decent society.... Her whole neat little person vibrated with annoyance. Really—with these half-and-half people ... one only had to look at his mother! All very well to find natives in the colonies—but in England, where one was not prepared for it—
She decided not to speak to Mr. Kirby any more that day, by way of corrective; it was a pity—they had been enjoying such a pleasant chat about the poet Keats. Miss Frazer trotted on, aggressively cool in sand-coloured linen; she was too thin to foment, like Mrs. Worley, panting enviously several yards in the rear. And her invariable sunshade had excused her from carrier-work.
Of this last, Napier Kirby felt sure he had been given more than his fair share. He carried the kettle, and an enormous sagging box of cakes; also his mother's waterproof. Usually light-heeled as Mercury, he was now depressed....
"It was the year measles were all over the place—not that this story has anything to do with it—but my brother's children all had it, and then the governess went and caught it too. About March of 1911, I think. Well, as I was saying, I was having tea at Victoria Station—funny how the tea tastes at these buffets, isn't it?" ... Fred Worley was paving the way to an anecdote, by a leisurely survey of the period, with its principal personages, topical events, and so on.
(But though he was good-natured enough, mind you, it really was coming it a bit thick on a fellow to give him all the crockery and most of the sandwiches to carry—and in this heat! What were the other fellows doing? Not that he minded work—but a picnic was no fun unless everyone did their fair share....
And the bottle of milk, too!)
Old Mrs. Kirby grinned and nodded, picking her wide black skirts out of the dust....