Major Olifant, too late to open the door for her, retraced his steps and stood, back to fire, idly evoking, as a man does, the human purposes that had gone to the making of the room, and he was puzzled. Some delicate spirit had chosen the old gold curtains which harmonized with the cushions on the plain upholstered settee and with the early Chippendale armchairs and with the Chippendale bookcase filled with odds and ends of good china, old Chelsea, Coalport, a bit or two of Sèvres and Dresden. Some green chrysanthemums bowed, in dainty raggedness, over the edge of a fine cut crystal vase. An exquisite water-colour over the piano attracted his attention. He crossed the room to examine it and drew a little breath of surprise to read the signature of Bonington—a thing beyond price. On a table by the French window, which led into a conservatory and thence into the little garden, stood a box of Persian lacquer. But there, throwing into confusion the charm of all this, a great Victorian mirror in a heavy florid gold frame blared like a German band from over the mantelpiece, and on the opposite wall two huge companion pictures representing in violent colours scenes of smug domestic life, also in gold frames, with a slip of wood let in bearing the legend “Exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1888,” screamed like an orchestrion.
He was looking round for further evidence of obvious conflict of individualities, when Myra appeared to take him to get rid of the dust of the journey. When he returned to the drawing-room he found Olivia.
“I can’t help feeling an inconscionable intruder,” said he.
“My only concern is that I’ll be able to give you something fit to eat.”
He laughed. “The man who has come out of France and Mesopotamia finikin in his food is a fraud.”
“Still,” she objected, “I don’t want to send you back to Mrs. Olifant racked with indigestion.”
“Mrs. Olifant?” He wore a look of humorous puzzlement.
“I suppose you have a wife and family?”
“Good heavens, no!” he cried, with an air of horror. “I’m a bachelor.”
She regarded him for a few seconds, as though from an entirely fresh point of view.
“But what on earth does a bachelor want with a great big house—with ten bedrooms?”
“Has it got ten bedrooms?”
“I presume Mr. Trivett sent you the particulars: ‘Desirable Residence, standing in own grounds, three acres. Ten bedrooms, three reception rooms. Bath H. and C.,’ and so forth?”
“The Bath H. and C. was all I worried about.”
They both laughed. Myra announced luncheon. They went into the dining-room. By the side of Major Olifant’s plate was a leather case. He flashed on her a look of enquiry, at which the blood rose into her pale cheeks.
“I’ve been interviewing your man,” she said rather defiantly. “He produced that from the pocket of the car.”
“You overwhelm me with your kindness, Miss Gale,” said he. “I should never have had the courage to ask for it.”
The case contained the one-armed man’s patent combination knife and fork.
“Courage is such a funny thing,” said Olivia. “A man will walk up to a machine-gun in action and knock the gunner out with the butt end of a rifle; but if he’s sitting in a draught in a woman’s drawing-room and catching his death of cold, he daren’t get up and shut the window. These are real eggs, although they’re camouflaged in a Chinese scramble. One faithful hen is still doing her one minute day. The others are on strike.”
She felt curiously exhilarated on this first actual occasion of asserting her independence. Only once before had she entertained guests at her own table, and these were her uncle and aunt from Clapham, the Edward Gales, who came to her mother’s funeral. They were colourless suburban folk who were pained by her polite rejection of their proposal to make her home with them on a paying footing, and reproached her for extravagance in giving them butter (of which, nevertheless, they ate greedily) instead of margarine. Her uncle was a pallid pharmaceutical chemist and lived above the shop, and his wife, a thin-lipped, negative blonde, had few interests in life outside the Nonconformist Communion into which she had dragged him. Olivia had seen them only once before, also at a funeral, that of a younger brother who had died at the age of three. Her robustious country-loving, horse-loving, dog-loving, pig-loving father had never got on with his bloodless brother. A staunch supporter of the Church of England to the extent of renting a pew in the Parish Church in which, in spite of the best intentions, he had never found time to sit, he confessedly hated dissent and all its works, especially those undertaken by Mrs. Edward. His vice of generosity did not accord with their parsimonious virtues. Once, Olivia remembered, he had dined with them at Clapham and returned complaining of starvation. “One kidney between the three of us,” he declared. “And they gave me the middle gristly bit!” So Olivia felt no call of the blood to Clapham. And, for all her inherited hospitable impulses, she had been glad when, having critically picked the funeral baked meats to the last bone, they had gone off in sorrow over her wicked prodigality and lack of true Christian feeling. But for their dreary and passing shadows she had eaten alone—she caught her breath to think of it—ever since her father’s last leave—shortly before he died at Etaples—eighteen months ago. Her hostess-ship at the present moment was a bubbling joy. Only her sense of values restrained her from ordering up a bottle of champagne. She contented herself with a bottle of old Corton—her father had been a judge of full red wines, burgundy and port, and had stocked a small but well-selected cellar, and had taught Olivia what is good that a girl should know concerning them.
She watched her guest’s first sip, as her father had been wont to watch, and flushed with pleasure when he paused, as though taken aback, sniffed, sipped again, and said:
“Either new conditions are making me take all sorts of geese for swans, or you’re giving me a remarkable wine.”
She burst out radiantly: “How lovely of you to spot it! It’s a Corton, 1887.”
“But forgive me for saying so,” he remarked. “It’s not a wine you should spill on any casual tramp. Oh, of course,” he protested in anticipation. “Your politeness will assure me that I’m not a casual tramp. But I am.”
“I owed you something for bringing you on a fool’s errand. Besides, I wanted to show you what Todger’s could do when it liked!”
“Todger’s is wonderful,” he smiled. “And how you could ever have thought of leaving Todger’s is more than I can understand.”
“Oh, I’m going to leave it, right enough,” she answered. “What on earth do you think a girl all by herself wants with a great big house with ten bedrooms, three reception rooms, bath h. and c., etc., etc.?”
“It’s your home, anyhow.”
“That’s why I don’t like to let it.”
“Then why go away from it? If it is not an impertinent question, what are you going to do?”
She met his clear blue eyes and laughed.
“I’m going out into the world to seek adventure. There!”
“And I,” said he, “want to get out of the world and never have another adventure as long as I live. I’ve had more than enough for one lifetime.”
“But still,” she retorted, conscious of his bearing and vigour and other conjectured qualities, “you can’t contemplate fossilizing here till the end of time.”
“That’s what I’m literally thinking of doing,” he replied.
She felt the reaction of bitter disappointment. A man like him had no right to throw up the sponge. The sudden blankness of her face betrayed her thoughts. He smiled.
“I said literally, you know. Fossilizing in the literal and practical sense. Once upon a time I was a