“From his point of view, no doubt, sir. You have seen what the weather has been all the afternoon?”
“The wind is dropping, sir,” said Holdsworth, looking through the skylight.
He had an uneasy expression in his eyes, and he frequently glanced at the skipper; but etiquette of a very severe kind prohibited him from imparting his misgivings of a change, in the face of the skipper’s manifest sense of security.
“It may freshen after sunset,” rejoined the skipper. “Mr. Holland, the pleasure of a glass of wine.”
The conversation drifted into other channels. Mrs. Ashton gave an account of a country ball she had attended a week or two before she left England, and described the dress she wore on that occasion, appealing often to her husband to aid her memory, and riveting the attention of Mr. St. Aubyn. Then the General talked of the garrison-towns he had visited, and paid some handsome compliments to the British army, and to English society in general. Mrs. Tennent, seated on the captain’s right hand, with her boy at her side, listened to without joining in the conversation.
Holdsworth’s eyes roamed incessantly through the skylight.
It happened presently that the General, in speaking of the beauty of English inland scenery, mentioned the county in which Southbourne was situated, and instanced in particular the country around Hanwitch, a town lying not half a dozen miles from Southbourne. Holdsworth pricked his ears, and joined in the conversation. He had reason to remember Hanwitch. One of the happiest days he had spent, during the three months he had been ashore, was that in which he had driven Dolly over to that town, and dined in the queer little hotel that fronted a piece of river-scenery as beautiful as any that is to be found up the Thames.
Whilst he and the General talked, the skipper argued with Mr. St. Aubyn on the merits of the English as a paying people. St. Aubyn declared that the English public, taken in the aggregate, was a mean public, rarely liberal, and then liberal in wrong directions, supporting quack institutions, responding to quack appeals, and ignoring true excellence, especially histrionic excellence. Both grew warm; then Mr. Holland joined in. He sent the discussion wandering from the point, and in stepped Mr. Ashton.
Meanwhile the decanters went round, the cuddy grew dark, and the negro was looking at the steward for orders to light the swinging lamps.