Swithin drew his heels together, his deportment ever admirable.
“Well, James, well Emily! How are you, Soames? How do you do?”
His hand enclosed Irene’s, and his eyes swelled. She was a pretty woman—a little too pale, but her figure, her eyes, her teeth! Too good for that chap Soames!
The gods had given Irene dark brown eyes and golden hair, that strange combination, provocative of men’s glances, which is said to be the mark of a weak character. And the full, soft pallor of her neck and shoulders, above a gold-coloured frock, gave to her personality an alluring strangeness.
Soames stood behind, his eyes fastened on his wife’s neck. The hands of Swithin’s watch, which he still held open in his hand, had left eight behind; it was half an hour beyond his dinner-time—he had had no lunch—and a strange primeval impatience surged up within him.
“It’s not like Jolyon to be late!” he said to Irene, with uncontrollable vexation. “I suppose it’ll be June keeping him!”
“People in love are always late,” she answered.
Swithin stared at her; a dusky orange dyed his cheeks.
“They’ve no business to be. Some fashionable nonsense!”
And behind this outburst the inarticulate violence of primitive generations seemed to mutter and grumble.