“He can talk well upon every subject,” she told her son.
“My dear mother, you mean that he is an adept in the season’s jargon, and can talk of those subjects which came into fashion last month; like the new cut of our coat collars, and the new colour of our neckties. A man of that kind always impresses people with his cleverness in May and the first half of June. Talk with him later, and you’ll find him flat, stale, and unprofitable. By July he will have emptied his bag.”
It was scarcely a surprise to Vansittart, knowing his mother’s liking for Mr. Sefton, to find that gentleman seated in her drawing-room one Saturday evening when he returned rather late from a polo match at Hurlingham. It was to be Eve’s last Saturday in London. June was at hand, and she was to go back to Fernhurst on the first of the month, to spend the small remnant of her single life with her sisters. She was to be married on St. John’s Day.
They had lingered at the tea-table on the lawn, sighing sentimentally over the idea that this was positively the last Saturday: that not again for nearly a year could they sit together drinking tea out of the homely little brown teapot, and watching the careless crowd come and go in the sunshine and the summery air.
In Charles Street, the cups and saucers had not been cleared away, although it was past seven. A side window in the front drawing-room looked westward, up the old-fashioned street, towards the Park, and the low sunlight was pouring in through the Madras-muslin curtain, shining on the jardinière of golden lilies and over the glittering toys on the silver table.
Vansittart opened the drawing-room door, but changed his mind about going in when he saw Sefton established on the sofa, half hidden in a sea of pillows.
“I’m very late,” he said. “How do you do, Sefton?” with a curt nod. “I’m to dine in Bruton Street, mother. Good night, if I don’t see you again.”
“Pray come in, Jack. I have something very serious to tell you—or at least Mr. Sefton has. He has been waiting for you ever since five o’clock. I wanted him to tell you at once. It is too serious for delay.”
“If I hadn’t left Miss Marchant and my sister five minutes ago I should think, by your solemnity, that one of them had been killed,” exclaimed Vansittart, scornfully, crossing the room with leisurely step, and seating himself with his back to the yellow brightness of that western window. “And now, my dear mother, may I inquire the nature of the mountain which you and Mr. Sefton have conjured out of some innocent molehill? Please don’t be very slow and solemn, as I have only half an hour to dress and get to Bruton Street. Boïto’s Mephistopheles will begin at half-past eight.”