“Oh no; it’s frightfully early.”
“That’s a most delightful hyperbole.”
“I shall summons you for calling me an isosceles triangle.”
Dr. Wayneflete laughed too … a small sound drowned by Dr. Hurd’s thwack on the arm of his chair as he flung back his head for his laugh.
“It has been wonderful today, don’t you think? Did you see the extraordinary light this afternoon?”
“Well no; we were all of us immured, but we were out this evening; we thought it the best specimen of London weather we’d struck so far.”
“There’s nothing whatever the matter with London weather. It’s perfect; the most perfect in the world.” Dr. Hurd resumed his shakings of laughter, restrained to listen. Dr. Winchester was sitting bent forward smiling dreamily.
“I know you won’t like me to call that a hyperbole, but you won’t quite expect me to say I unreservedly agree.”
“It isn’t a question of agreement or disagreement. It’s a simple fact.” Dr. Hurd again struck his chair and sat forward feeling for a handkerchief in a side pocket, his face a tearful grin turned upon Dr. von Heber.
“You are a loyal champion.”
“English weather does not want a champion. It’s so wonderful. Perhaps you are thinking of Italian skies and that sort of thing; in countries where the weather does not change or not suddenly; only at fixed seasons. That’s very nice in a way. You can make plans. But I know I should long for grey days and changes in the sky. A grey day is not melancholy; it’s exciting. You can see everything. The sun makes everything pale and blinds you.”
“There I think you mistaken. Nothing beautifies like sunlight, and if you’ve the sun behind you, you get the ahead prospect without being blinded.”
“I know what you mean; but I want both; for contrast perhaps; no, that’s silly; the grey days for their own sake, the misty atmosphere. Fog. I think a real London fog is perfection; everything and the shapes and outlines of things looming up only as you pass them. Wonderful.”
“Well, there you leave us behind. I can’t see anything either beautiful or in the least wonderful in your town fogs.”
“Quite so. A taste for town fog is an artificial taste. Town fog’s not a natural phenomenon. It’s just, town dirt.”
“I don’t care how it begins. It’s perfect. It makes the whole day an adventure even if you’re indoors. It’s perfect to have the light on and nothing to be seen outside but a copper glare. Outside is a glorious adventure in a new unknown world. … In a way all our weathers are that. In a way the weather’s enough, in itself, without anything else.”
“That seems to me a remarkable, a very extra-ordinairy point of view. You can’t in any circumstances make it a general defence of your climate. It’s a purely personal notion.”
“It isn’t. Even people who say they don’t like fogs are different; interested in the effect while it is on.”
“Uneasy, no doubt, like animals in a trap.”
“I refer to Miss Henderson’s extra-ordinairy valuation of weather as enough in itself. I consider that is one of the most extra-ordinairy points of view I ever heard stated.”
“No one can deny the quahl-ty of interest to the vagaries of your western European climut; from our point of view it’s all interest and no climut; ye can’t tell from day to day what season ye’ll be in and they all seem—stormy.”
“The seasons crop up all the year round, sometimes three in one day. That’s just the fascinating thing.”
“Quite so, we find that varry disturbing.”
“Our sudden changes of temperature keep us hardy.”
“That’s true; you’re a hardy people. Your weather suits you, beyond a doubt.”
“In Ireland, the weather changes every few minutes.”
“Hah, Wayneflete.”
“Granted. No doubt that assisted my parents to decide to leave; I don’t wonder at it.”
“You’re temperate. You’ve got the sea at a stone’s throw all round. You don’t have notable extremes. But there’s our trouble. Your extremes when they come ain’t arranged for. There’s no heat like your English heat, and my word your English houses in the winter’d take some beating.”
“You mean boardinghouses.”
“Not entirely. Though I admit your English hoames are unique in the matter of comfort. There’s nothing in the world like a real good English hoame. And not only in the matter of comfort.”
“Yes but look here von Heber. I know your fine English parlours with fine great fires to sit around, what they call ‘cosy’ over here, but my life why don’t they warm their corridors and sleeping rooms?”
“We don’t because it’s unhealthy. A cold bedroom keeps you hardy and you sleep better.”
“And not only warm them but light them. My word when they take you out of their warm parlours into cold corridors and land you in an icehouse with a little bit of a flickering candle.”
“You’re not tempted to read in bed and you go to sleep in healthy bracing air; it keeps you hardy.”
“Do you never read after you retire?”
“I do; and have the gas and a lamp to keep warm. I like warm rooms and I think in many ways it must be lovely to be able to wear muslin dresses indoors in snowy weather and put on a fur coat to go out; but I should be sorry to see the American warm house idea introduced into England.”
“You’re willing to be inconsistent then.”
“Consistency is the something of something minds.”
“I guess our central-heated residences would appeal to you.”
“I know they would. But I should freeze in the winter; because I shouldn’t be able to wear a fur coat.”
“How so?”
“I’m an anti-vivisectionist.”
“Then you’d best stay where they’re not needed. Your winters
