“Ah, that is a lady’s idea. No man who is worthy the name ever acts from caprice,” said Mr. Crowther, with his insinuating air, as if some hidden meaning were in the words, and then looking across the table and seeing the colonel’s watchful face, he altered both tone and manner as he added, “Of course you know Lostwithiel, Colonel Disney?”
“I saw a good deal of Lord Lostwithiel when he was a small boy,” answered the colonel, coldly. “His father was one of my early friends. But that is a long time ago.”
“How old is he, do you say?”
“Debrett will answer that question better than I can. I have never reckoned the years that have gone by since I saw him in an Eton collar.”
The men did not sit long over their wine. The doctor and his host talked agriculture, Mr. Crowther discussing all farming operations upon a large scale as became a man of territorial magnitude. The vicar prosed about an approaching lecture at the schoolroom, and utterly failed in hearing anything that was said in reply to his observations. Colonel Disney smoked a cigarette in silence, and with a moody brow.
Later, in the drawing-room, while the Crowther girls were playing a clamorous duet, by the last fashionable Sclavonic composer, Vansittart Crowther directed his conversation almost wholly to Mrs. Disney, as if she were the only person worthy of his attention. He was full of suggestions for future gaieties in which the Disneys were to share—picnics, boating parties.
“You must help us to wake up the neighbourhood, colonel,” he said, addressing Disney, with easy friendliness.
“We are not very likely to be of much assistance to you in that line,” Disney answered coldly. “We are quiet stay-at-home people, my wife and I, and take our pleasures on a very small scale.”
Colonel Disney’s carriage was announced at this moment. He gave his wife a look which plainly indicated his wish to depart, and she rose quickly from the low, deep chair in which she had been sitting, in some manner a captive, while Mr. Crowther lolled across the broad, plush-cushioned arm to talk to her. Allegra was engrossed in a talk about William Morris’s last poem with Mr. Colfox, who was delighted to converse with any one fresh from the far-away world of art and literature—delighted altogether with Allegra, whose whole being presented a piquant contrast to the Miss Crowthers. But the colonel’s sister saw the movement towards departure, and hastened to her brother’s side. Briefest adieux followed, and the first of the guests being gone, left behind them a feeling of uneasiness in those whose carriages had been ordered half an hour later. One premature departure will cast a blight upon your small dull party; whereas from a scene of real mirth the nine Muses and three Graces might all slip away unmissed and unobserved.