IX


Three o'clock that afternoon found the Harleys still in Martin's
house, with Mrs. Harley fidgetting to get George out for a walk in
order that she might enjoy an intimate, mother-talk with Joan, and
Joan deliberately using all her gifts to keep him there in order to
avoid it.

Lunch had been a simple enough affair as lunches go, lifted above
the ordinary ruck of such meals by the 1906 Chateau Latour and the
Courvoisier Cognac from the cellar carefully stocked by Martin's
father. From the psychological side of it, however, nothing could
well have been more complicated. George had not forgotten his
reception by the Ludlows that day of his ever-to-be-remembered visit
of inspection--the cold, satirical eyes of Grandmother, the freezing
courtesy of Grandfather, and the silent, eloquent resentment of the
girl who saw herself on the verge of desertion by the one person who
made life worth living in intermittent spots. He was nervous and
overanxious to appear to advantage. The young thoroughbred at the
head of the table who had given him a swift all-embracing look, an
enigmatical smile and a light laughing question as to whether he
would like to be called "Father, papa, Uncle George or what" awed
him. He couldn't help feeling like a clumsy piece of modern pottery
in the presence of an exquisite specimen of porcelain. His hands and
feet multiplied themselves, and his vocabulary seemed to contain no
more than a dozen slang phrases. He was conscious of the fact that
his collar was too high and his clothes a little too bold in
pattern, and he was definitely certain for the first time in his
life, that he had not yet discovered a barber who knew how to cut