He might be scolding a schoolboy for some trifling fault. edward turns to have a look at the keen unembarrassed face. mr. voysey smiles at him and proceeds to select from the bowl a rose for his buttonhole.
edward. I'll think it over, sir.
mr. voysey. Of course, you will. And don't brood, Edward, don't brood.
So edward leaves him; and having fixed the rose to his satisfaction, he rings his table telephone and calls through it to the listening clerk.
Send Atkinson to me, please. [Then he gets up, keys in hand to lock away Mrs. Murberry's and the Hatherley trust papers.]
THE SECOND ACT
The voysey dining-room at Chislehurst, when children and grandchildren are visiting, is dining table and very little else. And at this moment in the evening when five or six men are sprawling back in their chairs, and the air is clouded with smoke, it is a very typical specimen of the middle-class English domestic temple; the daily sacrifice consummated, the acolytes dismissed, the women safely in the drawing room, and the chief priests of it taking their surfeited ease round the dessert-piled altar. It has the usual red-papered walls, (like a refection, they are, of the underdone beef so much consumed within them) the usual varnished woodwork which is known as grained oak; there is the usual, hot, mahogany furniture; and, commanding point of the whole room, there is the usual black-marble sarcophagus of a fireplace. Above this hangs one of the two or three oil paintings, which are all that break the red pattern of the walls, the portrait painted in 1880 of an undistinguished looking gentleman aged sixty; he is shown sitting in a more graceful attitude than it could ever have been comfortable for him to assume. mr. voysey's father it is, and the brass plate at the bottom of the frame tells us that the portrait was a presentation one. On the mantelpiece stands, of course, a clock; at either end a china vase filled with paper spills. And in front of the fire,—since that is the post of vantage, stands at this moment major booth voysey. He is the second son, of the age that it is necessary for a Major to be, and of an appearance that many ordinary Majors in ordinary regiments are. He went into the army because he thought it would be like a schoolboy's idea of it; and, being there, he does his little all to keep it so. He stands astride, hands in pockets, coat-tails through his arms, cigar in mouth, moustache bristling. On either side of him sits at the table an old gentleman; the one is mr. evan colpus, the vicar of their parish, the other mr. george booth, a friend of long standing, and the Major's godfather. Mr. Colpus is a harmless enough anachronism, except for the waste of £400 a year in which his stipend involves the community. Leaving most of his parochial work to an energetic curate, he devotes his serious attention to the composition of two sermons a week. They deal with the difficulties of living the christian life as experienced by people who have nothing else to do. Published in series from time to time, these form suitable presents for bedridden parishioners. mr. george booth, on the contrary, is as gay an old gentleman as can be found in Chislehurst. An only son; his father left him at the age of twenty-five a fortune of a hundred thousand pounds (a plum, as he called it). At the same time he had the good sense to dispose of his father's business, into which he had been most unwillingly introduced five years earlier, for a like sum before he was able to depreciate its value. It was mr. voysey's invaluable assistance in this transaction which first bound the two together in great friendship. Since that time Mr. Booth has been bent on nothing but enjoying himself. He has even remained a bachelor with that object. Money has given him all he wants, therefore he loves and reverences money; while his imagination may be estimated by the fact that he has now reached the age of sixty-five, still possessing more of it than he knows what to do with. At the head of the table, meditatively cracking walnuts, sits mr. voysey. He has his back there to the conservatory door—you know it is the conservatory door because there is a curtain to pull over it, and because half of it is frosted glass with a purple key pattern round the edge. On mr. voysey's left is denis tregoning, a nice enough young man. And at the other end of the table sits edward, not smoking, not talking, hardly listening, very depressed. Behind him is the ordinary door of the room, which leads out into the dismal draughty hall. The Major's voice is like the sound of a cannon through the tobacco smoke.
major booth voysey. Of course I'm hot and strong for conscription . .