Tony nodded again. "I expect we shall have lots of interesting chats together," he said.
He rang the bell for Henry's car, and accompanying his cousin into the hall, helped him on with his coat. They stood talking in the doorway until a well-appointed Daimler brougham rolled up noiselessly to the porch, and then with another handshake and a final good-night Tony returned to the dining-room.
He sat down heavily in his lately vacated chair. "If you have any real love for me, Guy," he said, "you will pass me the brandy."
Guy handed across a delicately shaped old Venetian decanter, out of which Tony helped himself in generous fashion.
"If I had an inn," he observed, "I should pay Henry to sit in the bar parlour and talk about politics. I am sure he would drive the customers to drink."
In spite of himself Guy smiled. "I think you are very unfair and very ungrateful," he replied serenely. "Henry may be a little pompous at times, but after all he means well, and he has your best interests at heart."
Tony lit himself another cigar. "All my relations have," he said, "and the worst of it is, it's such a horribly infectious complaint. If I am not uncommonly careful I shall be catching it myself."
"You have managed to resist it pretty successfully so far," observed Guy drily.
"I know," said Tony, "but that doesn't make me feel really safe. There is a sort of natural tendency to take one's self seriously in the Conway blood, and you can never be certain it won't suddenly come bursting out. I shouldn't be in the least surprised if I finished up by getting the Victorian Order, and the freedom of Manchester."
"I suppose you do really mean to stand?" said Guy after a short pause.