"I am so sorry," she said, "but we shall be away all day. We shan't be
back till quite late."

"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