Renny looked at him aghast. “You mean to say you wouldn’t mind?” he exclaimed.
“Of course he’d mind,” said Alayne, in defence of the interests of her son.
“Well, I am attached to the place,” said Archer, “if that’s what you mean, but I am attached to it only because I’m used to it.”
“Then I suppose,” said Renny, “that you’re attached to your mother and me for no more than the same reason.”
“I guess that’s natural,” said Archer. “I guess you’re attached to me for the same reason. You’d scarcely have chosen me for a son if you’d been given a choice, would you?”
“Philip,” Renny slapped him on the shoulder, “Jalna will be yours.”
“We’ll hold you to that,” said Piers.
Alayne smiled kindly at Philip. “Of course you realize that your uncle was joking,” she said.
“No joking about it,” insisted Piers. “We’ll hold him to it. I call you to witness, Fitzturgis.”
“It’s too early for me to commit myself,” he said. “On either side.”
“I call you to witness,” repeated Piers, and Philip went round behind Renny’s chair and laid an arm about his shoulders.
Pheasant’s eyes were on Adeline and Fitzturgis. Romantically she was considering their suitability to each other. “His is the face of experience,” she thought. “Adeline’s is the face of character. Her face is the warmer, the fierier. His the more sensitive. She will be able to forget herself. He will forget himself — never. Except where his senses are concerned.”
“Well, Pheasant,” said Renny. “Will he do?” He smiled at Fitzturgis. “She’s sizing you up. She’s of an analytical turn of mind.”
“And usually wrong,” said Piers. “When she declares someone is trustworthy I hide my wallet.”
Nicholas asked, “Where are Meg and the girls?” Then, imitating his ancient mother, added, “I like the young people about me.”
“We used,” Renny said to Fitzturgis, “to have a tableful in the old days. As well as those you now see we had my three younger brothers — Eden, Finch, and Wakefield. Eden died, poor chap; Finch is a pianist, now off on tour; Wakefield is an actor in London.”
“Was I here?” asked Archer.
“Your type had not yet been invented,” answered his father.
Adeline spoke up: “Auntie Meg and Patience are at the door.”
The two alighted from a ten-year-old Ford car and came straight into the dining room. Meg exclaimed with delight on seeing Nicholas at table. Patience was wearing a sleeveless white dress which showed to advantage her shapely brown arms.
“Where is the other one?” demanded Nicholas. “Eden’s little girl?”
“Oh, she’s off somewhere with her young man,” Meg answered, trying to sound bright.
“Who is he? I don’t remember him.”
“His name is Norman.”
“Hm — don’t remember him.” Nicholas blew through his moustache. “Getting terribly forgetful. Can’t remember who the little girl’s mother was.” He looked to Alayne for help.
She rose. “I think we will go to the drawing-room for coffee,” she said.
“Drawing-room for coffee!” muttered Nicholas, as he was being heaved to his feet. “All these newfangled ideas.”
“We have been doing it for the past twenty-five years,” she returned crisply.
He stretched out a trembling hand to pat her shoulder. “You’ve been wonderful, Alayne.”
As Fitzturgis and she passed through the door she said, “You mustn’t mind anything Uncle Nicholas says. He is really a dear and quite excited at being downstairs again. Your coming has done him good.”
He gave her an admiring look. “I am very happy to be here,” he said. “In fact Jalna is just what I expected it to be.”
In the porch, two hours later, Adeline isolated Nooky. “Tell me,” she demanded, “what you think of him. Do you like him?”
“I hated him on sight.”
“Oh, Nooky — I am disappointed.”
“That’s nothing. I mean my hating him. I naturally hate the fellows you girls pick out. I hate Norman.”
“Norman,” she repeated, in an excess of scorn. “But Mait is utterly different.”
“Yes — he seems well enough.”
“Oh, Nooky, you are horrid.”
“Christian to you.”
“When did you go formal with me?”
“When you got engaged to Mr. Fitzturgis.”
“But you must acknowledge he’s a thousand times more attractive than Norman.”
“Patience and Roma probably wouldn’t agree to that.”
“I’m becoming very disappointed in you, Christian.”
“And I am disappointed in you. I wanted you to marry Maurice.’
“There never was anything between Maurice and me.”
“Excepting that he loves you.”
“He’s over all that.”
“I hope so. Are Maitland and he friendly?”
“Mait admires Maurice.”
Patience now joined them in the porch. She laid an arm about the shoulders of each. She said:
“I’ve been talking to your Irishman, Adeline, and I do like him. He seems awfully intelligent. He’s a bit older than I expected.”
“I’m not interested in youths.”
“Should you call me a youth?” asked Christian.
“Well, I think you are rather old for your years.”
“I wonder what Maitland will think of Roma,” Patience said, as though she could not keep her mind off Roma.
“I expect she’ll bore him,” said Adeline, in happy assurance.
Christian yawned. “As she would bore anyone with brains.”
“She and Norman,” said Patience, “consider themselves intellectuals.”
“You’re making me ill,” said Christian.
“Perhaps, but I couldn’t possibly understand the books they read.”
“Do they understand them, d’you think? Or do they just carry them about as the badge of the Lodge they belong to?”
Patience knit her brow in puzzlement. “Well, they know the names of the authors and the tables of contents.”
Christian shouted with laughter. “I’ll bet they do. And Roma is damned proud of being the daughter of a poet. She knows the titles of all Uncle Eden’s poems, but has she ever read one of them? I doubt it.”
Renny now joined them. He said, “It’s time your Uncle Nicholas went to bed, but he’s so enjoying himself I hate to suggest it.”
“When he does go up,” said Adeline, “I’ll take Maitland out of the way. Uncle Nick doesn’t like to be seen being helped.”
“Bless