CHAPTER X ASPARAGUS AND CATS
Charles Bevan followed his cousin to the house. His orderly mind could never have imagined of its own volition a ménage like that of the Lamberts. He revolted at it, yet felt strangely fascinated. It was like watching people dancing on a tight rope half cut in two, sailors feasting and merry-making on a sinking wreck, children plucking flowers on the crumbling edge of a cliff.
Tea was laid in state in the drawing-room, a lovely old room with tapestried walls, and windows that opened upon the garden; or at least that part of it which had been robbed of its roses and converted into a kitchen-garden during one of George Lambert's economical fits.
"That is the asparagus bed," said Fanny proudly.
It was like a badly-ploughed field, and Charles' eye travelled slowly over its ridges and hollows.
"Have you a potato bed?" he asked, his mind subconsciously estimating the size of the Lamberts' Highgate estate on the basis that their potato crop was in proportion to their asparagus.
"Oh, we buy our potatoes and cabbages and things," said Fanny; "they are cheap."
"But asparagus takes such a time to grow—four years, I think it is."