For instance, when they were told that the local parson and his daughter were coming to dinner, they had good-humoredly resigned themselves to an evening of acute boredom. But one of the social peculiarities of England, as far as they had seen it at present, was that things are always just a bit better than you look for—the evening, when it came, was really so much more entertaining than a similar function would have been in Kentucky, which they took as the equivalent for Sussex.
On sight, the meager, high-shouldered, rather frumpish, rather myopic Miss Thing, with the double-barreled name and the tortoise-shell spectacles, which she wore with effect, promised to be all that the lawless fancy of Bud and Jooly had painted her. But that was a first view. By the time dinner was over they had found things in common with her, and before the evening was out they were more inclined to sit at her feet than she was to sit at theirs. Their wonderful food and wine, their clothes and their surroundings, Bud’s pearls and Jooly’s diamonds, and their talk of Prince This and the Marquis So-and-So seemed to have not the slightest effect upon her. She took everything, Bud and Jooly included, so very much for granted, that their curiosity was piqued. Her dress was worth about a shilling a yard, her hair was done anyhow, her features did not conform to their idea of the beautiful, yet she was not in the least parochial, and both ladies agreed, that had you searched America from the east coast to the west it would have been hard to find anything quite like her.
The vicar puzzled them even more. They were not able to range him at all. Perhaps the thing which impressed them most was “that he didn’t show his goods in the window.”
Indeed, this fact may have struck Mr. Murdwell himself. For as soon as the meal was under way he began to discuss, with a frankness and a humor to which his guests didn’t in the least object, the English custom of “not showing their goods in the window.”
“And a very bad one, too,” said Mr. Murdwell, raising his glass. “To my mind it’s one of the reasons that’s brought this war about.”
The vicar asked for enlightenment.
“If your diplomacy had said: ‘Now look here, Fritz, old friend, if you don’t try to be a little gentleman and keep that torch away from the powder keg you’ll find big trouble,’ you wouldn’t have had to send for me to put the Central Empires out of business.”
“Nothing could have prevented this war,” said the vicar in a deep tone. “It was inevitable.”
“I am not sure that we shall agree about that,” said Mr. Murdwell coolly. “If you had let them know the strength of your hand they would never have dared to raise you.”
The vicar shook his head in strong dissent.