“Would you believe it, Mrs. —er?” Mrs. Manley had been known to say, on coming to something of the sort in the pages of her Times.
“No, and if you ask me, I think it’s absu-u-rd,” replied Mrs. Price in her new accent.
“I used to think her decidedly peculiar,” put in Mrs. Carpenter, “but there never was any question that he was immensely clever. I used to talk to him by the hour.” Emma Gainsborough was reported to have said that she hoped that when Millport put up a memorial to Mrs. Carpenter it would be in the appropriate form of a weathercock.
The Prices’ house was about three times the size of the Fultons’. It was of the same pattern as all the other houses in the neighbourhood; only its square mass seemed to have plumped itself down with more aggressive self-satisfaction than the others. On a close spring day it could almost be heard breathing there on its bit of gravel, puffing and grunting, “Now then; what dju looking at? Go away. This is Mr. Price’s house. We’ve got four reception rooms, twelve bedrooms, double tennis court, treble croquet lawn, copious vinery, garage and the usual offices.”
It must be admitted that the party was a good one to the extent that the prodigality of limitless self-satisfaction can go. The Prices meant well so far as they could see beyond their own affairs; and their unfortunate haziness over the rest of humanity was probably not their fault. Some day the school of “Hope-for-all” thought may enlarge its activities and devise a sort of Borstal system for the spiritually deficient, and the habits of the Prices will be investigated and probably traced to some quite simple defect in the marrow; the juice of a dog’s kidney may perhaps be injected and suitable exercises prescribed, and so on.
Dancing was going on in the larger of the two drawing-rooms, cards were to be played in the other, an “imperial supper,” as someone reported, was laid out in the dining-room and Father’s den was banked up all round by about a hundred hats, in the middle of which an old retainer with a face like the largest and richest muffin ever seen sat as if in a nest. No one could have approved more thoroughly of the proceedings than he. He had spent nearly all his life in waiting on the ladies and gentlemen of Millport in the evenings and in the small hours. By day it is supposed that he slept and murmured in his dreams, “Cold chicken or galantine, Sir? Lobster salad or trifle, Miss? Champagne, Madam?” He was now too rheumatic for this labour of love, so he sat among the hats and greeted the familiar faces as they came in. A few of them, such as Mr. Manley, spoke to him. “Ah, Higgins, so you’re here, are you?” they said. “Wet night, isn’t it?” and then they passed into the bright light and deafening chatter. Cyril came in to leave his coat and hat at the same moment as Sir Richard was receiving his ticket. “Hullo, what brings you here?” he said. “Didn’t know you came to these things.”
“I’ve laid a foundation stone this afternoon and looked in on my doctor,” Sir Richard began, and he paused a moment to dust his sleeve with a clothes brush.
“Pure coincidence, I hope?” Cyril asked anxiously.
“No, it’s a fact,” the old man assured him. “But I’ll tell Milly you asked and what’s more I won’t tell her that Queen Anne sent that joke to Punch. She has got the car here and I thought I might as well go back in it. Young David is here somewhere with her. By-the-bye, Price wants me to let Aldwych to him for the hunting next year. I may have to go abroad, but I can’t make up my mind.” He spoke in a low voice, but Higgins heard.
“I shouldn’t,” Cyril answered. “You never know what those sort of people will do with a place.”