“Humour in petticoats. She’s so infernally full of humour that there’s no room in her for anything else. I doubt if she’s got lungs. I’m sure she hasn’t got a heart or a brain.”
“But if she is so full of humour,” said Sir Donald mildly, “how does she—?”
“How does a great writer fail over an addition sum? How does a man who speaks eight languages talk imbecility in them all? How is it that a bird isn’t an angel? I wish to Heaven we knew. Well, Robin?”
“Of course, Mr. Bry.”
Carey’s violent face expressed disgust in every line.
“One of the most finished of London types,” he exclaimed. “No other city supplies quite the same sort of man to take the colour out of things. He’s enormously clever, enormously abominable, and should have been strangled at birth merely because of his feet. Why he’s not Chinese I can’t conceive; why he dines out every night I can. He’s a human cruet-stand without the oil. He’s so monstrously intelligent that he knows what a beast he is, and doesn’t mind. Not a bad set of people to talk with, unless Lady Holme was in a temper and you were next to her, or you were left stranded with Holme when the women went out of the dining-room.”
“You think Holme a poor talker?” asked Sir Donald.
“Precious poor. His brain is muscle-bound, I believe. Robin, you know I’m miserable to-night you offer me nothing to drink.”
“I beg your pardon. Help yourself. And, Sir Donald, what will you—?”
“Nothing, thank you.”