“The good old sort, but reactionary; always have been. The prettiest place in the country run abominably to seed. You have your work cut out there. Pawley, I take it, will soon retire . . . and then . . .?”
He stared fixedly at Grimshaw.
“I may retire first,” said Grimshaw.
“Then I’m mistaken in my man,” declared Wilverley, almost explosively.
“I know when I’m beaten, Lord Wilverley.” He added quietly: “But I shan’t throw up the sponge yet. Miss Chandos is not reactionary.”
“Miss Chandos?” Wilverley frowned slightly. “Hardly out!”
“She counts.”
“Miss Chandos will marry. And, if I know her, she would never run counter to her mother. Don’t make trouble between them, I beg you. She sided with us the other evening merely out of a girlish desire to ginger up a rather dull dinner.”
Grimshaw remained silent, and Wilverley began to talk about the war, which, in his opinion, couldn’t last long, K. of K. to the contrary. Soldiers were rank pessimists. Business interests would be paramount. Civilisation wouldn’t tolerate the dislocation of industry . . . and so forth.
Next morning Grimshaw left early, after promising to come again. He had liked his host, reckoning him, quite rightly, to be an honest man and a capable. He recalled a platitude often on the lips of his father: “We are sent into this world to better it.” According to this gauge, Wilverley had “made good.” And a wife, with a sense of humour, would round off his corners, trim his quills, and conciliate his unfriends. But probably she would give even more than she would get.