Yes, there could be no doubt as to his good looks. Being dark myself, except for the blue Irish eyes, which I own to being a little proud of, I have naturally always had a predilection for fairness in others. Clarence Payne was scarcely perhaps to be described as “fair.” To begin with, notwithstanding his office life, he managed to have a pleasant touch of sunburn, always desirable to my mind in a man. He had bright, rather keen, hazel eyes, and bright hair, one may almost say, to match. The colour of the hair is now a thing of the past, but the keen yet kindly eyes are still unchanged.
Luncheon was not a very long affair that day. We soon found ourselves bowling along, though at a sober pace, in the big landau, somewhat old-fashioned but eminently comfortable, like everything belonging to the Payne household. We were a party of four, my host and hostess, Clarence and myself. But it was not dull. Mr Payne had a real gift for interesting and sympathetic conversation, and, like his elder son, a very decided touch of humour, somewhat wanting, I am afraid, in Rupert, and dear Mrs Payne had an almost equally happy gift or knack—that of never being in the way, for what she perhaps lacked in intellectual power was more than recompensed for by her never-failing fund of intuitive sympathy.
“It is really a pleasure,” said Mr Payne, as we were approaching our destination, “to get thoroughly out of the city by daylight, if but once a week.”
“Yes,” said Clarence, “every evil has its good. We shouldn’t enjoy it as much if we had more of it—of this sort of thing, I mean. But you are luckier than I, father, in some ways,” and turning to me he went on, “My father has such a wonderful capacity for throwing things off. I don’t think business matters trouble you one bit, sir, once you have left papers and letters behind you,” he continued, to Mr Payne.
The elder man laughed. He evidently looked upon this as a great compliment.
“It has been acquired, my dear boy,” he said; “I have trained myself to it, and so will you in process of time. It doesn’t come easy just at first.”
I noted these remarks, feeling that they might nerve me in good purpose for what I had in view, and when, after a few minutes spent together in admiring the great central trophy of spring flowers, supposed to be the special object of the exhibition, we separated naturally enough, and I found myself practically speaking, alone with Clarence, it did not seem “forced” for me to revert to it.
“Don’t you think,” I began, “that if one has anything on one’s mind it seems very much worse when one is physically tired?”
The words were commonplace and trite, but they did not seem to strike my companion in that light.