By tea-time on the twenty-third they had all arrived except Rory, who was motoring down from Aldershot in his little “two-seater.”
Harry Sinclair, a big massive brown man, his fine head covered with crisp curls, was standing on the hearth-rug devouring hunks of iced cake and, completely indifferent as to whether he had an audience or not, was, in his own peculiar style—hesitating attacks, gropings for the right word which, when found, were trumpeted, bellowed, rather than uttered—delivering a lecture of great wit and acumen.
The Doña and Arnold—he scowling heavily—were talking in low tones on the outskirts of the circle; while Dick would eye them from time to time uneasily from his arm-chair.
The children—to celebrate their arrival—were having tea in the drawing-room, and both were extremely excited.
Anna’s passion for stamps was on the wane, and she no longer dreamed of Lincoln’s album so bulgy that it would not shut. She was now collecting the Waverley Novels in a uniform edition of small volumes, bound in hard green board and printed upon India paper; and following some mysterious sequence of her own that had nothing to do with chronology, she had “only got as far as the Talisman.” She was wondering if there was time before Christmas Day to convey to the Doña—very delicately of course—in what directions her desires now lay.
“The ... er ... chief merit of Shakespeare is that he is so ... er ... admirably ... er ... prosaic. The qualities we call prosaic exist only in verse, and vice versa....” (“How funny!” thought Anna, both pleased and puzzled, “Daddy is talking about Vice Versa.” She was herself just then in the middle of Anstey’s Vice Versa.) “For instance ... er ... the finest fragments of Sappho are ... er ... merely an ... er ... unadorned statement of facts! Don’t you agree, Cust?”
This purely rhetorical appeal elicited from Guy a shrieking summary of his own views on poetry; Harry’s eyes roving the while restlessly over the room, while now and then he gave an impatient grunt.
In the meantime tea and cake were going to Jasper’s head. He began to wriggle in his chair, and pretend to be a pig gobbling in a trough. As the grown-ups were too occupied to pay any attention, it was Anna who had to say: “Jasper! Don’t be silly.”
But he was not to be daunted by Anna; drawing one finger down the side of his nose he squealed out in the strange pronunciation he affected when over-excited: “Play Miss Fyles-Smith come down my nose!” (Miss Fyles-Smith, it may be remembered, was the “lady professor” who sometimes worked with Dr. Sinclair.)
The Doña stopped suddenly in the middle of something she was saying to Arnold, raised her lorgnette, and looked at Harry; he was frowning, and, with an impatient jerk of the head, turned again to Guy: “Well, as I was saying, Cust....”