slopping the wine on to the table. By the time he had set the decanter down he was trembling from head to foot. He quickly tweaked his cuff over his thin wrist and threw a furtive glance at the faces of those about him.
Everyone at the table had begun to talk at once. Not noisily or confusedly, but pleasantly in accord. Smiles flickered over their faces as visible signs of the geniality emanating from within. Aunt Augusta began to tell of the old days at Jalna, when Papa and Mama had entertained in lavish fashion, had even entertained a Governor-General and his lady. Then, of course, she drifted to social life in England in the eighties and nineties, when, she now liked to imagine, she had held an important social position. Nicholas, too, talked of London, but of a different London, where he and his wife, Millicent, had enjoyed themselves in the racing set till his funds gave out, and she left him, and he was obliged to return to the shelter of Jalna.
After two glasses, the mind of Ernest was centred on one thing only—what he should wear to the horse show the next day. He had a new fall overcoat of expensive English melton, made by the best tailor in town, such an extravagance as he had not indulged in for years. It had been bought with an eye on the horse show, yet the weather was so cold and wet that Ernest, with his dread of afflicting his delicate chest, was in a quandary. The tailor had told him that he had never seen a man of his age with such a slender, upright figure. Not much like poor old Nick, Ernest thought, who had grown so heavy and who generally had to lean on a stick because of his gouty knee. . . . Yet what about the delicate chest? A severe cold at that time of year might lead to anything. "Now, Renny," he was saying, "what about the atmosphere in the Coliseum? Was there a noticeable chill there to-day?"
"Chill!" ejaculated Renny, interrupted in a rhapsody on the powers of the high jumper he was to ride the next day. "Why, there was no chill at all! It was like a conservatory. A flapper might have gone there in a chiffon shift, and felt none the worse for it."
