What “the Dawkter” thought and said provided her with an inexhaustible topic for conversation. Apparently she had no opinions of her own, but, as her husband was quite willing to listen to the echo of his oracles, they were an exceedingly happy couple.
The Doctor was a generous-waisted gentleman whose talents exercised themselves in the field of proprietary medicine. Prendergast’s Anti-Agony Aliment was just beginning to fraternise with Best Wear Tires, Breakfast Foods and Theatrical Attractions on the bill boards. Presently, however, as a result of sapient advertising and the deplorable ignorance of English by the people who speak it, “aliment” merged into “ailment” and Prendergast’s Anti-Agony Ailment became the popular specific for those to whom all advertising makes direct appeal.
And so carefully generalised was the nature of the disorder it was supposed to correct that the decoction was consumed indiscriminately by sufferers from rheumatism, chilblains, dyspepsy, sciatica, high blood pressure and sclerosis. According to the testimonials that made their way into the press it did many people . . . good.
The Doctor’s mind was full of human ills, and the value of advertising. To the latter he was a recent convert, and inevitably fanatical. Requiring several thousand dollars to carry on his campaign, he was doing his best to bring the others to his point of view.
With the exception of Mrs. Barrington, no one gave him any encouragement. Throughout three entire courses, she murmured, “Incredible! Amazing! It sounds like a fairy tale!” at moments when he might have given some one else an opportunity to speak, and started him off again with renewed zest and vigour. Under cover of his eloquence, she talked to Raymond Dilling.
Dilling was suffering acute mental and physical distress. Fastidious always about his food, he could not eat the dishes put before him, and the little bit he did manage to swallow was flavoured with the scent which Hebe Barrington perpetually exuded. Positively, he would have preferred the odour of moth balls.
He had never seen a woman so naked . . . not even his wife. Marjorie emphasised a characteristic which she called modesty and, having no curiosity whatever about the human form, Dilling respected her reserve.
He sat at the corner of the table, next to Mrs. Pratt, and found that he could not escape contact with the warm mundanity of Mrs. Barrington. Although the table was not crowded, she seemed to give him no room. Once or twice, he shuddered, and she mistaking his movement, smiled provocatively into his eyes.
“You haven’t forgotten about Monday afternoon?” she whispered. “I’ve been thinking of it all week.”
Dilling had forgotten.