Palliser talked of his visit at Detchworth, which had been shortened because he had gone to fit in and remain until a large but uncertain party turned up. It had turned up earlier than had been anticipated, and of course he could only delicately slip away.
“I am sorry it has happened, however,” he said, “not only because one does not wish to leave Detchworth, but because I shall miss Lady Mallowe and Lady Joan, who are to be at Asshawe Holt next week. I particularly wanted to see them.”
Miss Alicia glanced at Tembarom to see what he would do. He spoke before he could catch her glance.
“Say,” he suggested, “why don’t you bring your grip over here and stay? I wish you would.”
“A grip means a Gladstone bag,” Miss Alicia murmured in a rapid undertone.
Palliser replied with appreciative courtesy. Things were going extremely well.
“That’s awfully kind of you,” he answered. “I should like it tremendously. Nothing better. You are giving me a delightful opportunity. Thank you, thank you. If I may turn up on Thursday I shall be delighted.”
There was satisfaction in this at least in the observant gray eye when he went away.
Dinner at Detchworth Grange was most amusing that evening. One of the chief reasons--in fact, it would not be too venturesome to say _the_ chief reason--for Captain Palliser’s frequent presence in very good country houses was that he had a way of making things amusing. His relation of anecdotes, of people and things, was distinguished by a manner which subtly declined to range itself on the side of vulgar gossip. Quietly and with a fine casualness he conveyed the whole picture of the new order at Temple Barholm. He did it with wonderfully light touches, and yet the whole thing was to be seen--the little old maid in her exquisite clothes, her unmistakable stamp of timid good breeding, her protecting adoration combined with bewilderment; the long, lean, not altogether ill-looking New York bounder, with his slight slouch, his dangerously unsophisticated-looking face, and his American jocularity of slang phrase.
“He’s of a class I know nothing about. I own he puzzled me a trifle at first,” Palliser said with his cool smile. “I’m not sure that I’ve ‘got on to him’ altogether yet. That’s an expressive New York phrase of his own. But when we were strolling about together, he made revelations apparently without being in the least aware that they were revelations. He was unbelievable. My fear was that he would not go on.”