"Mr. Hamilton Beamish and Mr. George Finch," said Ferris in the doorway. And the nicely-graduated way in which he spoke the two names would have conveyed at once to any intelligent listener that Hamilton Beamish was an honoured guest but that he had been forced to admit George Finch—against all the promptings of his better nature—because Mr. Beamish had told him to and he had been quelled by the man's cold, spectacled eye.
"Here we are," said Hamilton Beamish heartily. "Just in time, I perceive, to join in a jolly family discussion."
Mrs. Waddington looked bleachingly at George, who was trying to hide behind a gate-leg table. For George Finch was conscious of not looking his best. Nothing so disorders the outer man as the process of being arrested and hauled to the coop by a posse of New York gendarmes. George's collar was hanging loose from its stud: his waistcoat lacked three buttons: and his right eye was oddly discoloured where a high-minded officer, piqued by the fact that he should have collected crowds by scattering dollar-bills and even more incensed by the discovery that he had scattered all he possessed and had none left, had given him a hearty buffet during the ride in the patrol-wagon.
"There is no discussion," said Mrs. Waddington. "You do not suppose I am going to allow my daughter to marry a man like that."
"Tut-tut!" said Hamilton Beamish. "George is not looking his best just now, but a wash and brush-up will do wonders.... What is your objection to George?"
Mrs. Waddington was at a momentary loss for a reply. Anybody, suddenly questioned as to why they disliked a slug or a snake or a black-beetle, might find it difficult on the spur of the moment to analyse and dissect their prejudice. Mrs. Waddington looked on her antipathy to George Finch as one of those deep, natural, fundamental impulses which the sensible person takes for granted. Broadly speaking, she objected to George because he was George. It was, as it were, his essential Georgeness that offended her. But, seeing that she was expected to be analytical, she forced her mind to the task.
"He is an artist."
"So was Michael Angelo."
"I never met him."
"He was a very great man."