"What! that dark corner!" cried the General, looking with both distaste and hostility at the famous Signorelli—a full-length nude St. Sebastian, bound and pierced—which had replaced them on the dining-room wall. Who on earth ever saw such a picture in a dining-room? Roger must be a fool to allow it!
Afterwards the General and Lady Barnes wandered through the transformed house, in general agreement as to the ugliness and extravagance of almost everything that had been done, an agreement that was as balm to the harassed spirits of the lady.
"What have they spent?" asked the General, under his breath, as they returned to the drawing-room—"thousands and thousands, I should think! And there was no need for them to spend a penny. It is a sinful waste, and no one should waste money in these days—there are too many unemployed!" He drew up his spare person, with a terrier-like shake of the head and shoulders, as of one repudiating Mammon and all its works.
"Daphne has simply no idea of the value of money!" Lady Barnes complained, also under her breath. They were passing along one of the side corridors of the house, and there was no one in sight. But Roger's mother was evidently uneasy, as though Daphne might at any moment spring from the floor, or emerge from the walls. The General was really sorry for her.
"It's like all the rest of them—Americans, I mean," he declared; "they haven't our sense of responsibility. I saw plenty of that in the States."
Lady Barnes acquiesced. She was always soothed by the General's unfaltering views of British superiority.
They found Daphne in the drawing-room—a ghostly Daphne, in white, and covered with diamonds. She made a little perfunctory conversation with them, avoided all mention of the house, and presently, complaining again of headache, went back to her room after barely an hour downstairs.
The General whistled to himself, as he also retired to bed, after another and more private conversation with Lady Barnes, and half an hour's billiards with a very absent-minded host. By Jove, Laura wanted a change! He rejoiced that he was to escort her on the morrow to the London house of some cheerful and hospitable relations. Dollars, it seemed, were not everything, and he wished to heaven that Roger had been content to marry some plain English girl, with, say, a couple of thousand a year. Even the frugal General did not see how it could have been done on less. Roger no doubt had been a lazy, self-indulgent beggar. Yet he seemed a good deal steadier, and more sensible than he used to be; in spite of his wife, and the pouring out of dollars. And there was no doubt that he had grown perceptibly older. The General felt a vague pang of regret, so rare and so compelling had been the quality of Roger's early youth, measured at least by physical standards.
The house sank into sleep and silence. Roger, before saying good-night to his mother, had let fall a casual question as to the whereabouts of the room which still contained the débris of the London house. He must, he said, look up two or three things, some share certificates of his father's, for instance, that he had been in want of for some time. Lady Barnes directed him. At the end of the nursery wing, to the right. But in the morning one of the housemaids would show him. Had she the key? She produced it, thought no more of it, and went to bed.