'I never saw people wander from the subject as you do,' she protested. 'I can't imagine what connection there is between whether Mr. MacKenzie would arrange Julia's footstool, and the profligacy of the female sex.'
'Don't be hard on us,' said Mrs. Crowley. 'I must work off my flippancy before he arrives, and then I shall be ready to talk imperially.'
'When does Alec come?' asked Dick.
'Now, this very minute. I've sent a carriage to meet him at the station. You won't let him depress me, will you?'
'Why did you ask him if he affects you in that way?' asked Lucy, laughing.
'But I like him--at least I think I do--and in any case, I admire him, and I'm sure he's good for me. And Mr. Lomas wanted me to ask him, and he plays bridge extraordinarily well. And I thought he would be interesting. The only thing I have against him is that he never laughs when I say a clever thing, and looks so uncomfortably at me when I say a foolish one.'
'I'm glad I laugh when you say a clever thing,' said Dick.
'You don't. But you roar so heartily at your own jokes that if I hurry up and slip one in before you've done, I can often persuade myself that you're laughing at mine.'
'And do you like Alec MacKenzie, Lucy?' asked Dick.
She paused for a moment before she answered, and hesitated.
'I don't know,' she said. 'Sometimes I think I rather dislike him. But I'm like Julia, I certainly admire him.'
'I suppose he is rather alarming,' said Dick. 'He's difficult to know, and he's obviously impatient with other people's affectations. There's a certain grimness about him which disturbs you unless you know him intimately.'
'He's your greatest friend, isn't he?'
'He is.'
Dick paused for a little while.
'I've known him for twenty years now, and I look upon him as the greatest man I've ever set eyes on. I think it's an inestimable privilege to have been his friend.'
'I've not noticed that you treated him with especial awe,' said Mrs. Crowley.
'Heaven save us!' cried Dick. 'I can only hold my own by laughing at him persistently.'
'He bears it with unexampled good-nature.'
'Have I ever told you how I made his acquaintance? It was in about fifty fathoms of water, and at least a thousand miles from land.'
'What an inconvenient place for an introduction!'
'We were both very wet. I was a young fool in those days, and I was playing the giddy goat--I was just going up to Oxford, and my wise father had sent me to America on a visit to enlarge my mind--I fell over-board, and was proceeding to drown, when Alec jumped in after me and held me up by the hair of my head.'
'He'd have some difficulty in doing that now, wouldn't he?' suggested Mrs. Crowley, with a glance at Dick's thinning locks.
'And the odd thing is that he was absurdly grateful to me for letting myself be saved. He seemed to think I had done him an intentional service, and fallen into the Atlantic for the sole purpose of letting him pull me out.'
Dick had scarcely said these words when they heard the carriage drive up to the door of Court Leys.
'There he is,' cried Dick eagerly.
Mrs. Crowley's butler opened the door and announced the man they had been discussing. Alexander MacKenzie came in.
He was just under six feet high, spare and well-made. He did not at the first glance give you the impression of particular strength, but his limbs were well-knit, there was no superfluous flesh about him, and you felt immediately that he had great powers of endurance. His hair was dark and cut very close. His short beard and his moustache were red. They concealed the squareness of his chin and the determination of his mouth. His eyes were not large, but they rested on the object that attracted his attention with a peculiar fixity. When he talked to you he did not glance this way or that, but looked straight at you with a deliberate steadiness that was a little disconcerting. He walked with an easy swing, like a man in the habit of covering a vast number of miles each day, and there was in his manner a self-assurance which suggested that he was used to command. His skin was tanned by exposure to tropical suns.
Mrs. Crowley and Dick chattered light-heartedly, but it was clear that he had no power of small-talk, and after the first greetings he fell into silence; he refused tea, but Mrs. Crowley poured out a cup and handed it to him.
'You need not drink it, but I insist on your holding it in your hand. I hate people who habitually deny themselves things, and I can't allow you to mortify the flesh in my house.'
Alec smiled gravely.
'Of course I will drink it if it pleases you,' he answered. 'I got in the habit in Africa of eating only two meals a day, and I can't get out of it now. But I'm afraid it's very inconvenient for my friends.' He looked at Lomas, and though his mouth did not smile, a look came into his eyes, partly of tenderness, partly of amusement. 'Dick, of course, eats far too much.'
'Good heavens, I'm nearly the only person left in London who is completely normal. I eat my three square meals a day regularly, and I always have a comfortable tea into the bargain. I don't suffer from any disease. I'm in the best of health. I have no fads. I neither nibble nuts like a squirrel, nor grapes like a bird--I care nothing for all this jargon about pepsins and proteids and all the rest of it. I'm not a vegetarian, but a carnivorous animal; I drink when I'm thirsty, and I decidedly prefer my beverages to be alcoholic.'
