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Page 38
Between my Irish _vis-�-vis_ Flaherty and myself there existed no such
strain. He presently sauntered up to me, and dropped into conversation
as easily as if we had been old friends.
'Well, and are you here for your health or your entertainment?' he
began. 'But I don't need to ask that of a man who's drinking black
coffee and smoking tobacco at this hour of the night. I'm the only
invalid at our end of the table, and I'm no better than an amateur
meself. It's a barrister's throat I have--I caught it waiting for
briefs in me chambers at Doblin.'
We chatted together for a half-hour or so, and before we parted he had
given me a good deal of general information--about the town, the
natives, the visitors, the sands, the golf-links, the hunting, and,
with the rest, about our neighbours at table.
'Did ye notice the pink-faced bald little man at me right? That's
Cornel Escott, C.B., retired. He takes a sea-bath every morning, to
live up to the letters; and faith, it's an act of heroism, no less, in
weather the like of this. Three weeks have I been here, and but wan
day of sunshine, and the mercury never above fifty. The other fellow,
him at me left, is what you'd be slow to suspect by the look of him,
I'll go bail; and that's a bar'net, Sir Richard Maistre, with a place
in Hampshire, and ten thousand a year if he's a penny. The young lady
beside yourself rejoices in the euphonious name of Hicks, and trains
her Popper and Mommer behind her like slaves in a Roman triumph.
They're Americans, if you must have the truth, though I oughtn't to
tell it on them, for I'm an Irishman myself, and it's not for the pot
to be bearing tales of the kettle. However, their tongues bewray them;
so I've violated no confidence.'
The knowledge that my young man was a baronet with a place in
Hampshire somewhat disenchanted me. A baronet with a place in
Hampshire left too little to the imagination. The description seemed
to curtail his potentialities, to prescribe his orbit, to connote
turnip-fields, house-parties, and a whole system of British
commonplace. Yet, when, the next day at luncheon, I again had him
before me in the flesh, my interest revived. Its lapse had been due to
an association of ideas which I now recognised as unscientific. A
baronet with twenty places in Hampshire would remain at the end of
them all a human being; and no human being could be finished off in a
formula of half a dozen words. Sir Richard Maistre, anyhow, couldn't
be. He was enigmatic, and his effect upon me was enigmatic too. Why
did I feel that tantalising inclination to stare at him, coupled with
that reluctance frankly to engage in talk with him? Why did he attack
his luncheon with that appearance of grim resolution? For a minute,
after he had taken his seat, he eyed his knife, fork, and napkin, as a
labourer might a load that he had to lift, measuring the difficulties
he must cope with; then he gave his head a resolute nod, and set to
work. To-day, as yesterday, he said very little, murmured an
occasional remark into the ear of Flaherty, accompanying it usually
with a sudden short smile; but he listened to everything, and did so
with apparent appreciation.
Our proceedings were opened by Miss Hicks, who asked Colonel Escott,
'Well, Colonel, have you had your bath this morning?'
The Colonel chuckled, and answered, 'Oh, yes--yes, yes--couldn't
forego my bath, you know--couldn't possibly forego my bath.'
'And what was the temperature of the water?' she continued.
'Fifty-two--fifty-two--three degrees warmer than the air--three
degrees,' responded the Colonel, still chuckling, as if the whole
affair had been extremely funny.
'And you, Mr. Flaherty, I suppose you've been to Bayonne?'
'No, I've broken me habit, and not left the hotel.'
Subsequent experience taught me that these were conventional modes by
which the conversation was launched every day, like the preliminary
moves in chess. We had another ritual for dinner: Miss Hicks then
inquired if the colonel had taken his ride, and Flaherty played his
game of golf. The next inevitable step was common to both meals.
Colonel Escott would pour himself a glass of the _vin ordinaire_, a
jug of which was set by every plate, and holding it up to the light,
exclaim with simulated gusto, 'Ah! Fine old wine! Remarkably full rich
flavour!' At this pleasantry we would all gently laugh; and the word
was free.
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