“It’s hardly decent for him to stay on like this,” thought Henry, “and yet after all we asked him. And ... he is jolly!”
Jolly was something that only Henry’s father and Uncle Tim of the Trenchard family could be said to be, and its quality was therefore both enlivening and alarming.
“Mother won’t like it, if he’s too jolly,” thought Henry, “I’m not sure if she likes it now.”
Henry had, upon this afternoon, an extra cause for anxiety; a friend of his, a friend of whom he was especially proud, was coming to tea. This friend’s name was Seymour and he was a cheerful young man who had written several novels and was considered ‘promising’—
The Trenchards had a very slight knowledge of that world known as ‘the Arts’ and they had (with the exception of Henry) a very healthy distrust of artists as a race.
But young Seymour was another affair. He was a gentleman, with many relations who knew Trenchards and Faunders; his novels were proper in sentiment and based always upon certain agreeable moral axioms, as for instance “It is better to be good than to be bad” and “Courage is the Great Thing” and “Let us not despise others. They may have more to say for themselves than we know.”
It was wonderful, Mrs. Trenchard thought, that anyone so young should have discovered these things. Moreover he was cheerful, would talk at any length about anything, and was full of self-assurance. He was fat, and would soon be fatter; he was nice to everyone on principle because “one doesn’t know how much a careless word may harm others.” Above all, he was ‘jolly’. He proclaimed life splendid, wished he could live to a thousand, thought that to be a novelist was the luckiest thing in the world. Some people said that what he really meant was “To be Seymour was the luckiest thing in the world” ... but everyone has their enemies.
Henry was nervous about this afternoon because he felt—and he could not have given his reasons—that Mark and Seymour would not get on. He knew that if Mark disliked Seymour he, Henry, would dislike Mark. Mark would be criticising the Trenchard taste—a dangerous thing to do. And, perhaps, after all—he was not sure—he looked across the dark intervening shadow into the light where Mark was sitting—the fellow did look conceited, supercilious. No one in the world had the right to be so definitely at his ease.
There came in then Rocket and a maid with the tea, Katherine, and finally Aunt Aggie with Harvey Seymour.
“I found Mr. Seymour in the Hall,” she said, looking discontentedly about her and shivering a little. “Standing in the Hall.”