Philip lit his pipe. Athelny smoked cigarettes
of Havana tobacco, which he rolled himself. Sally
cleared away. Philip was reserved, and it embarrassed
him to be the recipient of so many confidences.
Athelny, with his powerful voice in the diminutive
body, with his bombast, with his foreign look, with
his emphasis, was an astonishing creature. He
reminded Philip a good deal of Cronshaw. He appeared
to have the same independence of thought, the same
bohemianism, but he had an infinitely more vivacious
temperament; his mind was coarser, and he had not that
interest in the abstract which made Cronshaw’s
conversation so captivating. Athelny was very
proud of the county family to which he belonged; he
showed Philip photographs of an Elizabethan mansion,
and told him:
“The Athelnys have lived there for seven centuries,
my boy. Ah, if you saw the chimney-pieces and
the ceilings!”
There was a cupboard in the wainscoting and from this
he took a family tree. He showed it to Philip
with child-like satisfaction. It was indeed imposing.
“You see how the family names recur, Thorpe,
Athelstan, Harold, Edward; I’ve used the family
names for my sons. And the girls, you see, I’ve
given Spanish names to.”
An uneasy feeling came to Philip that possibly the
whole story was an elaborate imposture, not told with
any base motive, but merely from a wish to impress,
startle, and amaze. Athelny had told him that
he was at Winchester; but Philip, sensitive to differences
of manner, did not feel that his host had the characteristics
of a man educated at a great public school. While
he pointed out the great alliances which his ancestors
had formed, Philip amused himself by wondering whether
Athelny was not the son of some tradesman in Winchester,
auctioneer or coal-merchant, and whether a similarity
of surname was not his only connection with the ancient
family whose tree he was displaying.
There was a knock at the door and a troop of children
came in. They were clean and tidy, now.
Their faces shone with soap, and their hair was plastered
down; they were going to Sunday school under Sally’s
charge. Athelny joked with them in his dramatic,
exuberant fashion, and you could see that he was devoted
to them all. His pride in their good health and
their good looks was touching. Philip felt that
they were a little shy in his presence, and when their
father sent them off they fled from the room in evident
relief. In a few minutes Mrs. Athelny appeared.
She had taken her hair out of the curling pins and
now wore an elaborate fringe. She had on a plain
black dress, a hat with cheap flowers, and was forcing
her hands, red and coarse from much work, into black
kid gloves.
“I’m going to church, Athelny,”
she said. “There’s nothing you’ll
be wanting, is there?”
“Only your prayers, my Betty.”
“They won’t do you much good, you’re
too far gone for that,” she smiled. Then,
turning to Philip, she drawled: “I can’t
get him to go to church. He’s no better
than an atheist.”
