“Yes,” Lester was saying, “we are obviously pushing back to Greek simplicity, and, if it isn’t too bold a thing to say, Greek morals. The more complicated and material modern life becomes the more surely will all thinking men and lovers of beauty return to that marvellous simplicity. And then the rest will have to follow, you know, one day.”
“Oh yes,” said Maradick absently. His eyes were fixed on the opposite wall, but, out of the corners of them, he was watching for the moment when Mrs. Lester should look up. Now he could regard yesterday afternoon with perfect equanimity; it was only an inevitable move in the situation. He wondered at himself now for having been so agitated about it; all that mattered was how she took it. The dogged, almost stupid mood had returned. His eyes were heavy, his great shoulders drooped a little as he bent to listen to Lester. There was no kindness nor charity in his face as he looked across the floor. He was waiting; in a moment she would look up. Then he would know; afterwards he would see Morelli.
“And so, you see,” said Lester, “Plato still has the last word in the matter.”
“Yes,” said Maradick.
Mrs. Lawrence was being entirely tiresome at the tea-table. The strain of the situation was telling upon her. She had said several things to Sir Richard and he had made no answer at all.
He continued to look with unflinching gaze upon Tony. She saw from Lady Gale’s and Mrs. Lester’s curious artificiality of manner that they were extremely uneasy, and she was piqued at their keeping her, so resolutely, outside intimacy.
When she was ill at ease she had an irritating habit of eagerly repeating other people’s remarks with the words a little changed. She did this now, and Lady Gale felt that very shortly she’d be forced to scream.
“It will be such a nuisance,” said Mrs. Lester, still continuing the “flying” conversation, “about clothes. One will never know what to put on, because the temperature will always be so very different when one gets up.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Lawrence eagerly, “nobody will have the slightest idea what clothes to wear because it may be hot or cold. It all depends——”
“Some one,” said Lady Gale, laughing, “will have to shout down and tell us.”