Markham seated himself at his desk with a disgruntled air.
“Greene is highly regarded as a social—not a political—decoration,” he said maliciously. “He belongs to your totem, not mine.”
“Fancy that!” Vance stretched himself luxuriously. “Still, it’s you who fascinate him. Intuition tells me he is not overfond of me.”
“You did treat him a bit cavalierly. Sarcasm is not exactly a means of endearment.”
“But, Markham old thing, I wasn’t pining for Chester’s affection.”
“You think he knows, or suspects, something?”
Vance gazed through the long window into the bleak sky beyond.
“I wonder,” he murmured. Then: “Is Chester, by any chance, a typical representative of the Greene family? Of recent years I’ve done so little mingling with the élite that I’m woefully ignorant of the East Side nabobs.”
Markham nodded reflectively.
“I’m afraid he is. The original Greene stock was sturdy, but the present generation seems to have gone somewhat to pot. Old Tobias the Third—Chester’s father—was a rugged and, in many ways, admirable character. He appears, however, to have been the last heir of the ancient Greene qualities. What’s left of the family has suffered some sort of disintegration. They’re not exactly soft, but tainted with patches of incipient decay, like fruit that’s lain on the ground too long. Too much money and leisure, I imagine, and too little restraint. On the other hand, there’s a certain intellectuality lurking in the new Greenes. They all seem to have good minds, even if futile and misdirected. In fact, I think you underestimate Chester. For all his banalities and effeminate mannerisms, he’s far from being as stupid as you regard him.”