"Then please don't go."
He stayed. He drank eleven cups of tea. Night was falling. He rose again.
"Well, now, I think I really——"
"You must go? I thought perhaps you could have stayed to dinner——"
"Oh, well, so I could, you know, if——"
"Then please stay; I'm sure my husband will be delighted."
"All right, I'll stay"; and he sank back into his chair, just full of tea, and miserable.
Father came home. They had dinner. All through the meal Jones sat planning to leave at eight-thirty. All the family wondered whether Mr. Jones was stupid and sulky, or only stupid.
After dinner mother undertook to "draw him out" and showed him photographs. She showed him all the family museum, several gross of them—photos of father's uncle and his wife, and mother's brother and his little boy, and awfully interesting photos of father's uncle's friend in his Bengal uniform, an awfully well-taken photo of father's grandfather's partner's dog, and an awfully wicked one of father as the devil for a fancy-dress ball.
At eight-thirty Jones had examined seventy-one photographs. There were about sixty-nine more that he hadn't. Jones rose.