When I First Met You.
6
Across the table from him — across all those lighted candles and the flowers —were Leslie and that Rorik fellow still in the red coat. Only it looked dressier now and his hair very black above the red. Career man he’d been called. Bick disliked him for no reason. He was irritated by the way the man ate his dinner, using his knife and fork in the European fashion, a busy gathering of food with both utensils, a finicky little clatter of metal against china. He ate quickly, almost daintily, he talked and looked into Leslie’s eyes very directly, and smiled. Since the war Washington was full of them, Bick thought, and scuffled his feet a little under the table; always hanging around the foreign embassies and legations. The food was very good. Wonderful, really. Run-down place, though. How could they afford it? Three daughters. Lady Karfrey, eh? Nuts to that!
The women did a great deal of talking, they were leading the conversation, especially that Leslie girl, it wasn’t the formal sort of dinner-table talk that he had sometimes encountered in Washington on his infrequent business trips there. He rarely took active part in the Washington end of Texas affairs, that was his cousin Roady Benedict’s business, that was why he had been sent to Washington. They were talking about everything from that crazy Scopes trial in Tennessee, with its monkey glands and its Bryan and its Darrow, to a book called An American Tragedy (which Bick hadn’t read) to a play called Desire Under the Elms (which Bick hadn’t seen). Bick Benedict ate his flavorsomeduck and talked politely when necessary to the young woman on his right (whose name he hadn’t caught) and the middle-aged woman on his left (whose name he hadn’t caught).
Someone at the other end of the table must have asked Nicholas Rorik a question for now he paused in the sprightly business of the knife and fork, he raised his voice to carry down the line of dinner guests, and smiled deprecatingly and shrugged his shoulders as he replied in his very good Oxford English. “It isn’t a large country as you know, it is a principality, my country. Our little kingdom, as you call it, is only—” he cast up his eyes ceilingward to juggle the figures into American terms—“it would be in your miles less than eight hundred square miles. Very small, as you consider size in this country.”
“My goodness,” said his questioner at the other end of the table, laughing a little and then turning to look at Jordan Benedict, “Texas is bigger than that, isn’t it, Mr. Benedict!”
“Texas!” said Doctor Lynnton. “Why, Mr. Benedict’s ranch is bigger than that. Sorry, Nicky. No offense.”
“I’ve always heard these tall tales from Texas,” said one of the men across the table—he, too, was wearing one of those red coats with a red face above it, “and now I’d like to have it right from the hor—right from headquarters, Mr. Benedict. Just how many acres have you got, or miles or whatever it is you folks reckon in? It’s the biggest ranch in Texas, isn’t it?”
Jordan Benedict never could accustom himself to the habit these Yankees had of asking a man how much land he had. Why, damit, it was the same as coming right out and asking a man how much money he had! How would that redcoat like it if he, Bick Benedict, were to shout across the table to ask him how much money he had in the bank?
“No,” he said quietly, “it isn’t the largest. It is one of the large ranches but there are others as large. One or two larger, up in the Panhandle and down in the brush country.”
He felt that Leslie Lynnton was looking at him and he sensed that she understood his resentment though he didn’t know how or why. That girl isn’t only smart, he thought. She understands everything,that’s why her eyes are so warm and lovely that’s what her father meant when he said she’s got something that transcends beauty.
“Yes,” the fellow was saying
6
Across the table from him — across all those lighted candles and the flowers —were Leslie and that Rorik fellow still in the red coat. Only it looked dressier now and his hair very black above the red. Career man he’d been called. Bick disliked him for no reason. He was irritated by the way the man ate his dinner, using his knife and fork in the European fashion, a busy gathering of food with both utensils, a finicky little clatter of metal against china. He ate quickly, almost daintily, he talked and looked into Leslie’s eyes very directly, and smiled. Since the war Washington was full of them, Bick thought, and scuffled his feet a little under the table; always hanging around the foreign embassies and legations. The food was very good. Wonderful, really. Run-down place, though. How could they afford it? Three daughters. Lady Karfrey, eh? Nuts to that!
The women did a great deal of talking, they were leading the conversation, especially that Leslie girl, it wasn’t the formal sort of dinner-table talk that he had sometimes encountered in Washington on his infrequent business trips there. He rarely took active part in the Washington end of Texas affairs, that was his cousin Roady Benedict’s business, that was why he had been sent to Washington. They were talking about everything from that crazy Scopes trial in Tennessee, with its monkey glands and its Bryan and its Darrow, to a book called An American Tragedy (which Bick hadn’t read) to a play called Desire Under the Elms (which Bick hadn’t seen). Bick Benedict ate his flavorsomeduck and talked politely when necessary to the young woman on his right (whose name he hadn’t caught) and the middle-aged woman on his left (whose name he hadn’t caught).
Someone at the other end of the table must have asked Nicholas Rorik a question for now he paused in the sprightly business of the knife and fork, he raised his voice to carry down the line of dinner guests, and smiled deprecatingly and shrugged his shoulders as he replied in his very good Oxford English. “It isn’t a large country as you know, it is a principality, my country. Our little kingdom, as you call it, is only—” he cast up his eyes ceilingward to juggle the figures into American terms—“it would be in your miles less than eight hundred square miles. Very small, as you consider size in this country.”
“My goodness,” said his questioner at the other end of the table, laughing a little and then turning to look at Jordan Benedict, “Texas is bigger than that, isn’t it, Mr. Benedict!”
“Texas!” said Doctor Lynnton. “Why, Mr. Benedict’s ranch is bigger than that. Sorry, Nicky. No offense.”
“I’ve always heard these tall tales from Texas,” said one of the men across the table—he, too, was wearing one of those red coats with a red face above it, “and now I’d like to have it right from the hor—right from headquarters, Mr. Benedict. Just how many acres have you got, or miles or whatever it is you folks reckon in? It’s the biggest ranch in Texas, isn’t it?”
Jordan Benedict never could accustom himself to the habit these Yankees had of asking a man how much land he had. Why, damit, it was the same as coming right out and asking a man how much money he had! How would that redcoat like it if he, Bick Benedict, were to shout across the table to ask him how much money he had in the bank?
“No,” he said quietly, “it isn’t the largest. It is one of the large ranches but there are others as large. One or two larger, up in the Panhandle and down in the brush country.”
He felt that Leslie Lynnton was looking at him and he sensed that she understood his resentment though he didn’t know how or why. That girl isn’t only smart, he thought. She understands everything,that’s why her eyes are so warm and lovely that’s what her father meant when he said she’s got something that transcends beauty.
“Yes,” the fellow was saying
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