“Oh, what a bore,” said he, “and I leave again on Friday.  Do let me come and see you off then.”

But Mrs. Assheton interposed.

“No, dear,” she said, “I am going to have five minutes’ talk with Madge before she goes and we don’t want you.  Look after Mr. Taynton.  I know he wants to talk to you and I want to talk to Madge.”

Mr. Taynton, when the door had closed behind the ladies, sat down again with a rather obvious air of proposing to enjoy himself.  It was quite true that he had a few pleasant things to say to Morris, it is also true that he immensely appreciated the wonderful port which glowed, ruby-like, in the nearly full decanter that lay to his hand.  And, above all, he, with his busy life, occupied for the most part in innumerable small affairs, revelled in the sense of leisure and serene smoothness which permeated Mrs. Assheton’s house.  He was still a year or two short of sixty, and but for his very bald and shining head would have seemed younger, so fresh was he in complexion, so active, despite a certain reassuring corpulency, was he in his movements.  But when he dined quietly like this, at Mrs. Assheton’s, he would willingly have sacrificed the next five years of his life if he could have been assured on really reliable authority—­the authority for instance of the Recording Angel—­that in five years time he would be able to sit quiet and not work any more.  He wanted very much to be able to take a passive instead of an active interest in life, and this a few hundreds of pounds a year in addition to his savings would enable him to do.  He saw, in fact, the goal arrived at which he would be able to sit still and wait with serenity and calmness for the event which would certainly relieve him of all further material anxieties.  His very active life, the activities of which were so largely benevolent, had at the expiration of fifty-eight years a little tired him.  He coveted the leisure which was so nearly his.

Morris lit a cigarette for himself, having previously passed the wine to Mr. Taynton.

“I hate port,” he said, “but my mother tells me this is all right.  It was laid down the year I was born by the way.  You don’t mind my smoking do you?”

This, to tell the truth, seemed almost sacrilegious to Mr. Taynton, for the idea that tobacco, especially the frivolous cigarette, should burn in a room where such port was being drunk was sheer crime against human and divine laws.  But he could scarcely indicate to his host that he should not smoke in his own dining-room.

“No, my dear Morris,” he said, “but really you almost shock me, when you prefer tobacco to this nectar, I assure you nectar.  And the car, now, tell me more about the car.”

Morris laughed.

“I’m so deeply thankful I haven’t overdrawn,” he said.  “Oh, the car’s a clipper.  We came down from Haywards Heath the most gorgeous pace.  I saw one policeman trying to take my number, but we raised such a dust, I don’t think he can have been able to see it.  It’s such rot only going twenty miles an hour with a clear straight road ahead.”