"So—so well-off."
"Oh, then the display has impressed you?" He laughed and said, quietly: "I'd rather have our own little place at Lavery's, wouldn't you?"
While he was saying it he felt: Yes, I'd rather have it, no doubt, but to be there now would make me utterly miserable.
She replied softly: "Yes, because it's our own."
He pondered a moment and then said: "Yes, I suppose that's one of the reasons why I would."
After a pleasant tea in the library he took Helen into the music-room, where he played Chopin diligently for half-an-hour and then, by special request of Richard, ran over some of the latest revue songs. Towards seven o'clock Lady Speed sailed in to remind Richard that it was getting near dinner-time. "I wish you'd run upstairs and change your clothes, dear—you know father doesn't like you to come in to dinner in tweeds.... You know," she went on, turning to Helen, "Charles isn't a bit fussy—none of us trouble to really dress for dinner, except when we're in town—only—only you have to put a limit somewhere, haven't you?"
As the hour for dinner approached it seemed as if a certain mysteriously incalculable imminence were in the air, as if the whole world of Beachings Over were steeling itself in readiness for some searching and stupendous test of its worth. It was, indeed, ten minutes past eight when the sound of a motor-horn was heard in the far distance. "That's Edwards," cried Lady Speed, apprehensively. "He always sounds his horn to let us know.... Now, Dick dear, don't let him know we've been waiting for him—you know how he hates to think he's late...."
And in another moment a gruff voice in the hall could be heard dismissing the chauffeur with instructions for the morrow. "Ten-thirty sharp, Edwards. The Daimler if it's wet. Gotter go over and see Woffenheimer."
And in yet another moment Lady Speed was rushing forward with an eager, wifely kiss. "You aren't late, Charles. All the clocks are a little fast.... Kenneth has come ... and this ..." she spoke a trifle nervously ... "this is Helen...."
Sir Charles distributed a gruff nod to the assembly, afterwards holding out his hand to be shaken. "Ahdedoo, Kenneth, my lad.... How are you? Still kicking eh? ... Ahdedoo, Helen ... don't mind me calling you Helen, do you? Well, Richard, my lad...."