Eustace understood that they had made a mistake in procedure. It was a trifle—no consequence, of course—but it vexed him to think how very obviously they should have had him brought into a room where they were sitting, so that he would have seemed like a person summoned before a tribunal, instead of establishing him here by himself and then coming to him, to be received by him as though they were a deputation.
“Will you smoke?” said Eustace curtly, and he opened the silver cigarette box that he had brought up from the dinner table.
With a gravely courteous gesture and smile—the gesture indeed almost Spanish and antiquated in its courtesy—Dyke indicated that he preferred not to smoke.
“My son—Eustace,” said Mr. Verinder. “And my brother-in-law—Colonel Pollard.”
“Miss Verinder’s godfather too,” said the colonel, seating himself.
Dyke ignored the second introduction; not rudely, but as if all that pinkness and whiteness had made no impression on him. He appeared to be quite unaware of them, and throughout this first interview spoke not a single word to their possessor.
“I was admiring that picture,” he said with another gesture, and he smiled again. “Mr. Verinder, I don’t pretend to be a judge of art, but I must say, that picture took my fancy enormously. So cleverly painted—all the autumn tints of the foliage, and the effect of the sunshine on the lake.” He said this as if wishing to put them at their ease and allow them time. “A very charming picture—in my uneducated opinion.”
“It is by Leader, R. A.,” said Mr. Verinder simply. “I have several of them.”
He had sat down at a table on which were blotting pads with tortoise-shell covers, boxes of porcelain, a gold photograph frame, and a massive ivory paper-knife; picking up the knife and toying with it, he conveyed the intimation that he wished Mr. Dyke to sit upon the amber satin sofa which faced the table at about two yards distance.