Lest I should seem to lay too much insistence upon what was, after all, but an episode in Mr Burden’s career, I will dwell no longer upon the close of the meal.
Of the pudding I have no record: there is little occasion to mention the cheese.
MRS WARNER’S RETREATING FIGURE
I must not, however, omit to praise the gesture with which Lord Benthorpe opened the door, nor that with which Mrs Warner rewarded him as she swept through it to the drawing-room beyond. As she left the room Mr Burden, gazing at what he afterwards called her retreating figure, could not help marvelling at the simple grace, the total absence of affectation, and, at the same time, the wonderful dignity of her carriage. The impression was heightened, not only by the error into which he had originally fallen as to her social rank, but by the striking character of her dress, which was of a shining electric green, comparable to that which illumines the wing cases of certain tropical beetles.
In her absence the conversation flagged; they slowly sipped their wine, and Mr Burden, who had smoked after dinner every day for nearly fifty years, waited most anxiously for the appearance of tobacco. If none was offered him, it was because Lord Benthorpe, naturally clinging to what remained of his ancient authority, forbade in the house which yet sheltered him the use of a narcotic he abhorred.
Mr Burden, remembering that such eccentricities were but the tradition of an older society which he profoundly respected, suffered in silence; but his suffering impressed with a monotonous dullness the few moments during which Lord Benthorpe retained him to drink wine. Indeed, until they rejoined Mrs Warner, nothing passed between the two men save a remark from Lord Benthorpe, that the stripes upon the tiger, to which allusion had been made during dinner, were a curious instance of mimetic selection, permitting the man-eater to be almost indistinguishable from the tall grasses wherein he lurked. To this Mr Burden replied that Providence had endowed all animals, even the weakest, with marvellous opportunities for self-protection.
The conversation after they entered the drawing-room, though full of interest and charm, must no longer detain the reader, who will have formed a sufficient judgment of its character from the careful analysis which he has just perused.
It was at the early hour of ten that Mrs Warner left them, and Mr Burden, recognising that an enforced departure before morning prayers would leave but little time for discussion on the following day, boldly approached the subject which had brought him to Placton.
He put forward very earnestly his doubts and his hopes upon the future of his African trade; he told Lord Benthorpe frankly, how vastly superior were the opportunities of the politician to those of the merchant for determining the probable future of such a district as the M’Korio, and he asked, in the plainest terms, for advice.