"Why should you question my appreciation of rarity and strength? I can see that she is very kind and that if anybody can melt Mr. Besley she will."
"Gertrude would have melted Diogenes," said Adrienne with a fond assurance that, though it took the form of playfulness, lacked its substance. "I hope they will find each other, for he is rare and strong, too. What he needs is warmth and happiness. He makes me think of Shelley when he talks."
"He's too well up in statistics to make me think of Shelley," Oldmeadow commented. Barney, he saw, from his place beside Mrs. Aldesey at the other end of the room, was still watching them, pleased now, it was evident, by the appearance of friendly, drifting converse they presented. "He's not altogether unknown to me for we often, in our review, get our windows broken by his stones; well-thrown, too. He's very able. So you thought it might do the British Empire good to face him? Well, I suppose it may."
"Which are the British Empire?" asked Adrienne. "You. To begin with."
"Oh, no. Count me out. I'm only a snappy, snuffy scribbler. Good old Lord Lumley, of course, with all his vast, well-governed provinces shimmering in the Indian sun behind him. And Sir Archibald, who talks so loudly in the House. Palgrave didn't bring him, I'll be bound."
"No. Lady Lumley brought him. He and Lord Lumley are certainly more than odds and ends." She had an air of making no attempt to meet his badinage, if it was that, but of mildly walking past it. "They are, both of them, rather splendid people, in spite of their limitations. They've accepted tradition, you see, instead of growing opinion. That is their only trouble. I was afraid you were going to say Mr. Haviland. He is certainly an odd and end."
Mr. Haviland and Mrs. Pope had found each other and were indulging in mirthful repartee in the back drawing-room. "I feel safe with Lord Lumley and Sir Archibald," Adrienne added.
"I'd certainly rather trust myself in their hands than in Mr. Besley's. I'd almost rather trust myself in the hands of Mr. Haviland."
"You mean that they would, at least, keep you comfortable and that Mr. Besley wouldn't." She, too, had her forms of repartee.
"I expect it's just what I do mean," he assented. "If Mr. Besley and his friends had their way, I for instance, and workers of my type, would soon, I suspect, have to forego our tobacco and our chamber-music. We're only marketable in a comfortable world. And there are more comfortable people, I maintain, under Lord Lumley, than there would be under Mr. Besley."