speech, even for an Englishman, quite as if it were an everlasting
question with him whether it was worth while to speak at all. One had
the feeling when listening to Mr. Odell-Carney that he was being
favoured beyond words; it took him so long to say anything, that, if one
were but moderately bright, he could finish the sentence mentally some
little time in advance of the speaker, and thus be prepared to properly
appreciate that which otherwise might have puzzled him considerably. It
could not be said, however, that Mr. Odell-Carney was ponderous; he was
merely the effectual result of delay. Perhaps it is safe to agree with
those who knew him best; they maintained that Odell-Carney was a pose,
nothing more.

His wife was quite the opposite in nearly every particular, except
height and angularity. She was bony and red-faced and opinionated. A few
sallow years with a rapid, profligate nobleman had brought her, in
widowhood, to a fine sense of appreciation of the slow-going though
tiresomely unpractical men of the Odell-Carney type. It mattered little
that he made poor investment of the money she had sequestered from his
lordship; he had kept her in the foreground by associating himself with
every big venture that interested the financial smart set.
Notwithstanding the fact that he never was known to have any money, he
was looked upon as a financier of the highest order. Which is saying a
great deal in these unfeeling days of pounds and shillings.

Of course Mrs. Odell-Carney was dressed as all rangy, long-limbed
Englishwomen are prone to dress,--after a model peculiarly not her own.
She looked ridiculously ungraceful alongside the smart, chic American
women, and yet not one of them but would have given her boots to be able
to array herself as one of these. There was no denying the fact that
Mrs. Odell-Carney was a "regular tip-topper," as Mr. Rodney was only too