“So glad you’ve come, Sir Clinton. We’re looking forward to some decent bridge. . . .”
A weird howl from the loud-speaker drowned the remainder of her words. Ernest lifted himself from his chair with an effort and approached them.
“Are you much of a bridge-player?” he inquired apathetically. “I never cared enough for the game to do much good. It’s such a lot of trouble, you know. All this business of struggling for the declaration, and all that. And if one gets keen on it one’s apt to get very keen; and perhaps then one spends a lot of time over it. And one might spend that time in other ways, perhaps better, don’t you think? But perhaps you like it? Some people do.”
“Uncle was never a rap of good at it,” Sylvia explained with a faint suspicion of a smile. “So naturally he doesn’t like it. Same as the non-dancing man who can’t dance, you know.”
“Now Stenness is a good player,” Ernest went on. “And I can’t think why he finds it amusing. He’s got all the cards docketed in his head, you know, just like a lot of papers in pigeon-holes. That seems to me too much like work—making a toil of pleasure and all that sort of thing. But to-night he won’t be playing. He’s busy in the study with some papers I asked him to look over. And Torrance is practising shots in the billiard room, so he won’t be playing, either. Arthur! Are you going to play?”
Arthur looked up crossly from his task.
“No!” he snapped. “Can’t you see this affair’s gone out of gear and I’m trying to put it right?”
Another shriek from the instrument emphasised his words.
Sylvia put her hands over her ears.
“Will you be long over it, Arthur?” she demanded. “These howls are terrible.”