Pepper were
heard fumbling at the door.
"How are you, Vinrace?" said Ridley, extending a limp hand as he came
in, as though the meeting were melancholy to both, but on the whole more
so to him.
Willoughby preserved his heartiness, tempered by respect. For the moment
nothing was said.
"We looked in and saw you laughing," Helen remarked. "Mr. Pepper had
just told a very good story."
"Pish. None of the stories were good," said her husband peevishly.
"Still a severe judge, Ridley?" enquired Mr. Vinrace.
"We bored you so that you left," said Ridley, speaking directly to his
wife.
As this was quite true Helen did not attempt to deny it, and her next
remark, "But didn't they improve after we'd gone?" was unfortunate, for
her husband answered with a droop of his shoulders, "If possible they
got worse."
The situation was now one of considerable discomfort for every one
concerned, as was proved by a long interval of constraint and silence.
Mr. Pepper, indeed, created a diversion of a kind by leaping on to his
seat, both feet tucked under him, with the action of a spinster who
detects a mouse, as the draught struck at his ankles. Drawn up there,
sucking at his cigar, with his arms encircling his knees, he looked
like the image of Buddha, and from this elevation began a discourse,
addressed to nobody, for nobody had called for it, upon the unplumbed
depths of ocean.
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