"Well, I wouldn't say young," replied Ermyntrude, helping herself to marmalade. "He's at what I call the right age, if you know what I mean. You never saw anyone so distinguished - and then his manners! Well, you don't meet with such polish in England, not that I'm one to run down my own country, but there it is."
"I don't like Russians much," said Mary perversely. "'They always seem to talk so much and do so little."
"You shouldn't be narrow-minded, dear. Besides, he isn't actually a Russian, as I've told you a dozen times. He's a Georgian - he used to have a lovely estate in the Caucasus, which is somewhere near the Black Sea, I believe."
At this moment the door opened, and Wally Carter came into the room. He was a medium-sized man, who had been good-looking in youth, but who had run rather badly to seed. His blue eyes were inclined to be blood shot, and his mouth, under a drooping moustache, sagged a little. In the days when he had courted Ermyntrude, his fondness for strong liquor had not made him quite careless of appearances, but five years spent in opulent circnmstances had caused him to deteriorate lamently . He was was naturally slovenly, and his clothes never seemed to fit him, nor his hair to be properly brushed. He was generally amiable, but grumbled a good deal, not in any bad-tempered spirit, but in a gently complaining way to which none of his family paid the slightest heed.
"Here you are, then!" said his wife, by way of greeting. "Touch the bell, Mary, there's a love! We couldn't have had a better day, could we, Wally? Though, of course, as I always say, to see Palings at its best you ought to see it when the rhododendrons are out."
"Who wants to see it?" inquired Wally, casting a lacklustre glance towards the window.
"Now, Wally! As though you didn't know as well as I do that the Prince is coming today!"
This reminder seemed to set the seal to Wally's dissatisfaction. He lowered the newspaper behind which he had entrenched himself. "Not that fellow you picked up at Antibes?" he said.
A spark of anger gleamed in Ermyntrude's eye. "I don't see that you've any call to be vulgar. I should hope I didn't go picking up men at my time of life! Alexis was introduced to me by Lady Fisher, I'll have you know."
"Alexis!" ejaculated Wally. "You needn't think I'm going to go about calling the fellow by a silly name like that, because I'm not."