“Why not? Always a knife and fork for you here, you know.”
“I’d love to, Josiah, but they’ll be waiting for me at home.”
“Well, if you won’t, you won’t—but you’d be very welcome.” And then he embraced the house and its surroundings in a large gesture. “One better than Waterloo Villa, eh?”
“It is,” said Gerty, with tempered enthusiasm. She looked at her brother-in-law with wary eyes. “You must be a very rich man, Josiah.”
He narrowed his gaze a little and scratched his cheek delicately with the side of his forefinger, an odd trick he had when thinking deeply on questions of money. “So, so,” he said. “So, so.”
“But a place like this means heaps of money,” Gerty waved a knowledgeable parasol.
“I daresay.” It was the air of a very “substantial” man indeed. “The year after next I expect to be mayor. And then”—a note of triumph crept into his voice—“we may be able to show some of ’em a thing or two.”
Miss Preston was diplomatically quite sure of that. And yet as she stood with the crude bulk of Strathfieldsaye behind her, she looked somehow a little dubious. It was as if, respect this brother-in-law of hers as she might, she had certain mental reservations in regard to him.
He was too busy with his own thoughts to detect what was passing in her mind; besides the curves of his own mind were too large for him to care very much even had he done so.
“You’ve got to come to the show, Gert,” he said abruptly. “To-morrow week—don’t forget.”