They shook hands and Colonel Blount led the way down a long corridor, lined with marble busts on yellow marble pedestals, to a large room full of furniture, with a fire burning in a fine rococo fireplace. There was a large leather-topped walnut writing-table under a window opening on to a terrace. Colonel Blount picked up a telegram and read it.
“I’d quite forgotten,” he said in some confusion. “I’m afraid you’ll think me very discourteous, but it is, after all, impossible for me to ask you to luncheon. I have a guest coming on very intimate family business. You understand, don’t you? … To tell you the truth, it’s some young rascal who wants to marry my daughter. I must see him alone to discuss settlements.”
“Well, I want to marry your daughter, too,” said Adam.
“What an extraordinary coincidence. Are you sure you do?”
“Perhaps the telegram may be about me. What does it say?”
“ ‘Engaged to marry Adam Symes. Expect him luncheon. Nina.
’ Are you Adam Symes?”
“Yes.”
“My dear boy, why didn’t you say so before, instead of going on about a vacuum cleaner? How are you?”
They shook hands again.
“If you don’t mind,” said Colonel Blount, “we will keep our business until after luncheon. I’m afraid everything is looking very bare at present. You must come down and see the gardens in the summer. We had some lovely hydrangeas last year. I don’t think I shall live here another winter. Too big for an old man. I was looking at some of the houses they’re putting up outside Aylesbury. Did you see them coming along? Nice little red houses. Bathroom and everything. Quite cheap, too, and near the cinematographs. I hope you are fond of the cinematograph too? The Rector and I go a great deal. I hope you’ll like the Rector. Common little man rather. But he’s got a motor car, useful that. How long are you staying?”
“I promised Nina I’d be back tonight.”
“That’s a pity. They change the film at the Electra Palace. We might have gone.”
An elderly woman servant came in to announce luncheon. “What is at the Electra Palace, do you know, Mrs. Florin?”
“Greta Garbo in Venetian Kisses, I think, sir.”
“I don’t really think I like Greta Garbo. I’ve tried to,” said Colonel Blount, “but I just don’t.”
They went in to luncheon in a huge dining-room dark with family portraits.
“If you don’t mind,” said Colonel Blount, “I prefer not to talk at meals.”
He propped a morocco-bound volume of Punch before his plate against a vast silver urn, from which grew a small castor-oil plant.
“Give Mr. Symes a book,” he said.
Mrs. Florin put another volume of Punch beside Adam.
“If you come across anything really funny read it to me,” said Colonel Blount.
Then they had luncheon.
They were nearly an hour over luncheon. Course followed course in disconcerting abundance while Colonel Blount ate and ate, turning the leaves of his book and chuckling frequently. They ate hare soup and boiled turbot and stewed sweetbreads and black Bredenham ham with Madeira sauce and roast pheasant and a rum omelette and toasted cheese and fruit. First they drank sherry, then claret, then port. Then Colonel Blount shut his book with a broad sweep of his arm rather as the headmaster of Adam’s private school used to shut the Bible after evening prayers, folded his napkin carefully and stuffed it into a massive silver ring, muttered some words of grace and finally stood up, saying:
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to have a little nap,” and trotted out of the room.
“There’s a fire in the library, sir,” said Mrs. Florin. “I’ll bring you your coffee there. The Colonel doesn’t have coffee, he finds it interferes with his afternoon sleep. What time would you like your afternoon tea, sir?”
“I ought really to be getting back to London. How long will it be before the Colonel comes down, do you think?”
“Well, it all depends, sir. Not usually till about five or half-past. Then he reads until dinner at seven and after dinner gets the Rector to drive him in to the pictures. A sedentary life, as you might say.”
She led Adam into the library and put a silver coffeepot at his elbow.
“I’ll bring you tea at four,” she said.
Adam sat in front of the fire in a deep armchair. Outside the rain beat on the double windows. There were several magazines in the library—mostly cheap weeklies devoted to the cinema. There was a stuffed owl and a case of early British remains, bone pins and bits of pottery and a skull, which had been dug up in the park many years ago and catalogued by Nina’s governess. There was a cabinet containing the relics of Nina’s various collecting fevers—some butterflies and a beetle or two, some fossils and some birds’ eggs and a few postage stamps. There were some bookcases of superbly unreadable books, a gun, a butterfly net, an alpenstock in the corner. There were catalogues of agricultural machines and acetylene plants, lawn mowers, “sports requisites.” There was a fire screen worked with a coat of arms. The chimneypiece was hung with the embroidered saddle-cloths of Colonel Blount’s regiment of Lancers. There was an engraving of all the members of the Royal Yacht Squadron, with a little plan in the corner, marked to show who was who. There were many other things of equal interest besides, but before Adam had noticed any more he was fast asleep.
Mrs. Florin woke him at four. The coffee had disappeared and its place was taken by a silver tray with a lace cloth on it. There was a silver teapot, and a silver kettle with a little spirit-lamp underneath, and a
