“A game of considerable skill,” remarked Mr. Drybeck. “It has gone out of fashion of late years, but in my young days it was very popular. I remember my grandmother telling me, however, that when it first came in it was frowned on as being fast, and leading to flirtation. Amusing!”
“I can't flirt with Mrs. Haswell: she regards me with a motherly eye. Or with Mavis: her eyes glisten, and she knows I don't mean the dreadful things I say. Besides, her uncle might take it to mean encouragement of himself, and that would never do. He would force his way into my house, and I'm resolved that it shall be the one threshold he can't cross. My brother used to say that to me, but he didn't mean it. The likeness between us was only skin-deep, after all.”
“Oh, yours won't be the only one!” said the Major, chuckling a little. “Eh, Drybeck?”
“No, you're quite mistaken, Major. Warrenby will cross Mr. Drybeck's threshold by a ruse. He will simulate a fit at his gate, or beg to be allowed to come in to recover from an attack of giddiness, and Mr. Drybeck will be too polite to refuse him. That's the worst of having been born in the last century: you're always being frustrated by your upbringing.”
“I trust,” said Mr. Drybeck frostily, “that I should not refuse admittance to anyone in such need of assistance as you indicate.”
“You mean you trust you won't be at home when it happens, because your fear of appearing to the rest of us to be callous might prove stronger than your disinclination to render the least assistance to Warrenby.”
“Really, Plenmeller, that borders on the offensive!” protested the Major, perceiving that Mr. Drybeck had taken umbrage at it.
“Not at all. It was merely the truth. You aren't suggesting, are you, that Mr. Drybeck lived for long enough in the last century to think the truth something too indecent to be acknowledged? That seems to me very offensive.”
The Major was nonplussed by this, and could think of nothing say. Mr. Drybeck gave a laugh that indicated annoyance rather than amusement, and said: “You will forgive me, Plenmeller, if I say that the truth in this instance is that Warrenby's presence in our midst does not—though I think it hardly adds to the amenities of Thornden—occupy my mind as it seems to occupy yours. I am sorry to be obliged to tamper with the dramatic picture you have painted, but honesty compels me to say that my feeling in the matter is one of indifference.”
The Major turned his eyes apprehensively towards Gavin, fearing that it could scarcely have escaped his acute perception that Mr. Drybeck's loathing of his professional rival and social neighbour was fast approaching the proportions of monomania. But Gavin only said, with a flicker of his unkind smile: “Oh, I do so much admire that attitude! I should adopt it myself, if I thought I could carry it off. I couldn't, of course: you would have to be a Victorian for that.”