"Still it need not be proclaimed to an indiscriminate crowd. You might show more tact. Gerald was fit to die of mortification. And you who used to have so much pride!"
Roland Yorke, honestly willing to please everybody and vex none, stood looking ruefully. "As to pride, Annabel, if a fellow wants that knocked out of him, he had better go over to Port Natal, and get buffeted as I did," he concluded. "I left it all behind me there, I'm afraid. And, of tact, I don't think I ever possessed any."
Which was perfectly true.
Meanwhile Mr. Ollivera, waiting in vain to see Sir Thomas Kene enter, grew sick of the ever-changing, ever-moving panorama that jostled him, and went downstairs to his uncle's small and comfortable room, leaving word with the servants where he might be found if the Judge came in. Mr. Greatorex very rarely joined these large parties. He was sitting in quiet now, a bit of bright fire in the grate, for the evenings were still chilly, and a reading-lamp, newspapers, and books on the table. Slender, active, upright still, he scarcely looked his age, sixty-two: his face was fresh yet, and not a thread of grey mingled with the smooth brown hair.
"Henry, is it you!" he exclaimed; for he was surprised to see his nephew enter at that late hour. And Mr. Ollivera, as he took a chair, apologized for interrupting him, but said he had grown so weary of the turmoil above.
"You don't mean to say you have been making one of them!"
"I have for once, uncle. It will serve me for ten years to come. People say to me sometimes, 'Why don't you go into society?' Good heavens! to think that rational beings, God's people who have souls to be saved, can waste their precious hours in such, evening after evening! The women for the most part are unseemly to behold; their bodies half dressed, their faces powdered and painted, their heads monstrosities, their attire sinfully lavish. The men affect to be heartless, drawling coxcombs. It is a bad phase of life, this that we have drifted into, rotten at its core; men and women alike artificial. Do you like this in your house, Uncle Greatorex?"
"When Bede married, I resigned to him the mastership of the house, so far as these things were concerned," replied Mr. Greatorex.
"I know. Does Bede like it?"
"He countenances it. For myself, I trouble them but little now. Even my dinner I often cause to be served here. Bede's wife was civil enough to come down this evening and press me to join them."