"I remember reading somewhere," I remarked, "that a little widow is a dangerous thing. Manifestly the author of that brilliant epigram was of your way of thinking. He would probably have classed her as an explosive."
He turned to me and smiled mockingly.
"I think all men who have seriously studied the subject, as I have, must have formed a similar opinion. The widow is dangerous because she is a widow. She has tasted of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. She knows the weak places in man's defensive armour. She has acquired skill in generalship which enables her to win her battles. Added to all this is the pathos of her position, which is an asset of no inconsiderable value. She knows to a tick of time when to allure by smiles and melt by tears, and woe to the man who thinketh he standeth when she proposes his downfall."
"My dear Derwent," interposed the squire from the other side the hearth; "you speak, no doubt, from a ripe experience, if an outside one, and no one here will question your authority; but surely the new woman and the woman with a mission may be bracketed together."
The squire was leaning back in a comfortable saddle-bag, one leg thrown easily over the other and his hands clasped behind his head. A tolerant half-smile hung about the corners of his lips and lurked in the shadows of his eyes. He has a grand face, and it shows to perfection on an occasion like this.
The vicar sat near him. He is a spare, rather cadaverous man, who lives among Egyptian mummies and Assyrian tablets and palimpsests and first editions, and knows nothing of any statesman later than Cardinal Wolsey. An open book of antiquities lay upon his knee, and his finger-tips were pressed together upon it, but the eyes which blinked over the top of his gold-rimmed spectacles were fixed upon space, and the Cynic's vapourings were as unheeded as yesterday.
The vicar's wife is the very antithesis of her husband. She is a plump, round-faced little body, and was tidily dressed in a black silk of quite modern style with just a trace of elegance, and a berthe of fine old lace which made me break the tenth commandment every time I looked at her. She was evidently on the best of terms with herself, and stood in no awe of anybody, and least of all of the Cynic, whom she regarded with a half-affectionate, half-contemptuous air. She had a way of tossing her head and pursing her lips when he was more than usually aggressive that obviously amused him. I had soon found out that they were old antagonists.
The Cynic himself puzzled me. I scarcely dared to look at him very closely, for I had the feeling that none of my movements escaped his notice, and I had not been able to decide whether his age was thirty or fifty. He is of average height and build, and was somewhat carelessly dressed, I thought. His dinner jacket seemed rather loose, and his starched shirt was decidedly crumpled. I wondered who looked after his ménage.
His hands are clean and shapely, and he knows where to put them, which is generally an indication of good breeding and always of a lack of self-consciousness, and from their condition I judged that he earned his bread in the sweat of his brain rather than of his brow.
As to his face—well, I liked it. It is dark, but frank and open, and he has a good mouth, which can be seen, because he is clean shaven, and his teeth are also good. But then in these degenerate days anyone who has attained middle life may have good teeth: it is all a matter of money.