He felt that Mr. Wintersloan had established an extraordinarily bad precedent.
§ 10
Marjorie discovered that she and Mr. Magnet had fallen a little behind the others. She would have quickened her pace, but Mr. Magnet stopped short and said: "Marjorie!"
"When I saw you standing there and singing," said Mr. Magnet, and was short of breath for a moment.
Marjorie's natural gift for interruption failed her altogether.
"I felt I would rather be able to call you mine—than win an empire."
The pause seemed to lengthen, between them, and Marjorie's remark when she made it at last struck her even as she made it as being but poorly conceived. She had some weak idea of being self-depreciatory.
"I think you had better win an empire, Mr. Magnet," she said meekly.
Then, before anything more was possible, they had come up to Daffy and Mr. Wintersloan and her mother at the gate....
As they returned Mrs. Pope was loud in the praises of Will Magnet. She had a little clear-cut voice, very carefully and very skilfully controlled, and she dilated on his modesty, his quiet helpfulness at table, his ready presence of mind. She pointed out instances of those admirable traits, incidents small in themselves but charming in their implications. When somebody wanted junket, he had made no fuss, he had just helped them to junket. "So modest and unassuming," sang Mrs. Pope. "You'd never dream he was quite rich and famous. Yet every book he writes is translated into Russian and German and all sorts of languages. I suppose he's almost the greatest humorist we have. That play of his; what is it called?—Our Owd Woman—has been performed nearly twelve hundred times! I think that is the most wonderful of gifts. Think of the people it has made happy."