‘Well, that’s what I have decided to do,’ resumed Lady Constantine. ‘I will write to these opticians at once.’
There seemed to be no more for him to do than to thank her for the privilege, whenever it should be available, which he promptly did, and then made as if to go. But Lady Constantine detained him with, ‘Have you ever seen my library?’
‘No; never.’
‘You don’t say you would like to see it.’
‘But I should.’
‘It is the third door on the right. You can find your way in, and you can stay there as long as you like.’
Swithin then left the morning-room for the apartment designated, and amused himself in that ‘soul of the house,’ as Cicero defined it, till he heard the lunch bell sounding from the turret, when he came down from the library steps, and thought it time to go home. But at that moment a servant entered to inquire whether he would or would not prefer to have his lunch brought in to him there; upon his replying in the affirmative a large tray arrived on the stomach of a footman, and Swithin was greatly surprised to see a whole pheasant placed at his disposal.
Having breakfasted at eight that morning, and having been much in the open air afterwards, the Adonis-astronomer’s appetite assumed grand proportions. How much of that pheasant he might consistently eat without hurting his dear patroness Lady Constantine’s feelings, when he could readily eat it all, was a problem in which the reasonableness of a larger and larger quantity argued itself inversely as a smaller and smaller quantity remained. When, at length, he had finally decided on a terminal point in the body of the bird, the door was gently opened.
‘Oh, you have not finished?’ came to him over his shoulder, in a considerate voice.
‘O yes, thank you, Lady Constantine,’ he said, jumping up.