"No. Vickers."
"You mean he's an awful ass, but he's clever."
VI.
One Friday evening an unusual smell of roast chicken came through the kitchen door. Mary put on the slender, long-tailed white gown she wore when she dined at the Sutcliffes'.
Dan's friend, Lindley Vickers, was sitting on the sofa, talking to Mamma.
When she came in he left off talking and looked at her with sudden happy
eyes. She remembered Maurice Jourdain's disappointed eyes, and Mark's.
Dan became suddenly very polite and attentive.
All through dinner Mr. Vickers kept on turning his eyes away from Mamma and looking at her; every time she looked she caught him looking. His dark hair sprang in two ridges from the parting. His short, high-bridged nose seemed to be looking at you, too, with its wide nostrils, alert. His face did all sorts of vivid, interesting things; you wondered every minute whether this time it would be straight and serious or crooked and gay, whether his eyes would stay as they were, black crystals, or move and show grey rings, green speckled.
He was alive, running over with life; no, not running over, vibrating with it, holding it in; he looked as if he expected something delightful to happen, and waited, excited, ready.
He began talking, about Hegel. "'Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.'"
She heard herself saying something. Dan turned and looked at her with a sombre, thoughtful stare. Mamma smiled, and nodded her chin as much as to say "Did you ever hear such nonsense?" She knew that was the way to stop you.
Mr. Vickers's eyes were large and attentive. When you stopped his mouth gave such a sidelong leap of surprise and amusement that you laughed. Then he laughed.