Sunflower, saying with heavy courtesy, ‘Well, what does Miss Fassendyll say? Won’t you persuade Lord Essington?’
She was confused by him. The courtesy in his voice was so very heavy. It was as if he stood on the steps of a throne, and she were kneeling to him, and he bent down to do her honour, and cast about her a rich cloak, too rich a cloak, so rich that its weight crushed her. But in the centre of his hard grey gaze there was something that was as if he had not bent down at all, as if he had no intention of doing her honour; as if he were standing level with her, and meant her to take whatever he gave her. She turned aside and looked at Essington, as years before, when she had first sat at meals with Essington, she used to turn aside and look at the thought of Chiswick: the streets; the people; her mother’s house; her sisters and brothers; the comparatively simple and unpatterned life she had left behind her. But immediately she forgot Francis Pitt, for she saw what was the matter with Essington. He had put down his glass, and now that he felt himself free from the other man’s attention he looked like a child who has heard that if he likes he will be given a certain treat, who longs for that treat more than anything else in the world, but who is prevented by some infantile point of dignity from showing that he longs for it. Of course, he wanted to make it up with Hurrell. It was always like this a year or two after his quarrels, if they were with anybody whom he had known for a long time. If they were with people whom he had met during the last few years, since this curious lack of interest in personality had come upon him, of course he parted with them with no emotion save relief at having eliminated one of those innumerable human annoyances that seemed to his mad nerves to be crowding in and in on his tired middle-age. But about old friends he felt just as if he were an ordinary person. You would not have thought so at the time, for these quarrels were not just a mere matter of having a few words. There was always one of his ideas behind them, and that meant that he went about blue-white like one of the revival preachers that used to come to Chapel now and again, and whipped himself to go on with the thing long after he would naturally have lost interest in it. There wasn’t any bright side to them at all, for he got none of the relief that Father used to get by swearing about the place, since he held himself taut all the time lest he should say anything unfair. He seemed to dread being unfair as other people dreaded being sent to prison: for him there wasn’t anything worse. But deep down he minded his quarrels in the ordinary way as well. She would see signs of that first some months after it was all over, when a name came up in conversation and Essington pursed his mouth behind his silver feelers and said, with a bruise on his voice, ‘Woodruff? Oh, we don’t see anything of each other now; not since the Amritsar business’; as, tonight, he had said, ‘Hurrell? I wouldn’t have thought you were likely to learn much good of me from that quarter.’ And then with luck, a year or two later, there would happen a night when she came back from the theatre and found him sitting in his armchair by the fire in the little library, that was so pretty with the birds-of-paradise chintz, drinking his weak whisky-and-water and looking chubby. ‘Well, how did it go tonight? That’s good. You’re getting on, you know. This is a long way the best thing you’ve ever done. There’s quite a quality about your acting now. But what a pretty thing you are! The best part of your prettiness never shows in the theatre. In a little room like this you’re astounding. Come here and let me kiss your silly old neck. Well. I’ve had a good evening too. A dinner at the Jacobsons’. Ooh! Such a rich house. Lots of footmen nine feet tall. And I think there was a pearl in my soup. Very good talk, though. And who do you think was
She was confused by him. The courtesy in his voice was so very heavy. It was as if he stood on the steps of a throne, and she were kneeling to him, and he bent down to do her honour, and cast about her a rich cloak, too rich a cloak, so rich that its weight crushed her. But in the centre of his hard grey gaze there was something that was as if he had not bent down at all, as if he had no intention of doing her honour; as if he were standing level with her, and meant her to take whatever he gave her. She turned aside and looked at Essington, as years before, when she had first sat at meals with Essington, she used to turn aside and look at the thought of Chiswick: the streets; the people; her mother’s house; her sisters and brothers; the comparatively simple and unpatterned life she had left behind her. But immediately she forgot Francis Pitt, for she saw what was the matter with Essington. He had put down his glass, and now that he felt himself free from the other man’s attention he looked like a child who has heard that if he likes he will be given a certain treat, who longs for that treat more than anything else in the world, but who is prevented by some infantile point of dignity from showing that he longs for it. Of course, he wanted to make it up with Hurrell. It was always like this a year or two after his quarrels, if they were with anybody whom he had known for a long time. If they were with people whom he had met during the last few years, since this curious lack of interest in personality had come upon him, of course he parted with them with no emotion save relief at having eliminated one of those innumerable human annoyances that seemed to his mad nerves to be crowding in and in on his tired middle-age. But about old friends he felt just as if he were an ordinary person. You would not have thought so at the time, for these quarrels were not just a mere matter of having a few words. There was always one of his ideas behind them, and that meant that he went about blue-white like one of the revival preachers that used to come to Chapel now and again, and whipped himself to go on with the thing long after he would naturally have lost interest in it. There wasn’t any bright side to them at all, for he got none of the relief that Father used to get by swearing about the place, since he held himself taut all the time lest he should say anything unfair. He seemed to dread being unfair as other people dreaded being sent to prison: for him there wasn’t anything worse. But deep down he minded his quarrels in the ordinary way as well. She would see signs of that first some months after it was all over, when a name came up in conversation and Essington pursed his mouth behind his silver feelers and said, with a bruise on his voice, ‘Woodruff? Oh, we don’t see anything of each other now; not since the Amritsar business’; as, tonight, he had said, ‘Hurrell? I wouldn’t have thought you were likely to learn much good of me from that quarter.’ And then with luck, a year or two later, there would happen a night when she came back from the theatre and found him sitting in his armchair by the fire in the little library, that was so pretty with the birds-of-paradise chintz, drinking his weak whisky-and-water and looking chubby. ‘Well, how did it go tonight? That’s good. You’re getting on, you know. This is a long way the best thing you’ve ever done. There’s quite a quality about your acting now. But what a pretty thing you are! The best part of your prettiness never shows in the theatre. In a little room like this you’re astounding. Come here and let me kiss your silly old neck. Well. I’ve had a good evening too. A dinner at the Jacobsons’. Ooh! Such a rich house. Lots of footmen nine feet tall. And I think there was a pearl in my soup. Very good talk, though. And who do you think was
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