Part 17

“Might you? Then I will teach you!” She turned, bright and rosy, to her step-mother. “I choose Mr. Arnold Brinkworth,” she said.

Here, again, there appeared to be something in a name unknown to celebrity, which nevertheless produced its effect--not, this time, on Miss Silvester, but on Sir Patrick. He looked at Mr. Brinkworth with a sudden interest and curiosity. If the lady of the house had not claimed his attention at the moment he would evidently have spoken to the dark young man.

But it was Lady Lundie’s turn to choose a second player on her side. Her brother-in-law was a person of some importance; and she had her own motives for ingratiating herself with the head of the family. She surprised the whole company by choosing Sir Patrick.

“Mamma!” cried Blanche. “What can you be thinking of? Sir Patrick won’t play. Croquet wasn’t discovered in his time.”

Sir Patrick never allowed “his time” to be made the subject of disparaging remarks by the younger generation without paying the younger generation back in its own coin.

“In my time, my dear,” he said to his niece, “people were expected to bring some agreeable quality with them to social meetings of this sort. In your time you have dispensed with all that. Here,” remarked the old gentleman, taking up a croquet mallet from the table near him, “is one of the qualifications for success in modern society. And here,” he added, taking up a ball, “is another. Very good. Live and learn. I’ll play! I’ll play!”

Lady Lundie (born impervious to all sense of irony) smiled graciously.

“I knew Sir Patrick would play,” she said, “to please me.”

Sir Patrick bowed with satirical politeness.

“Lady Lundie,” he answered, “you read me like a book.” To the astonishment of all persons present under forty he emphasized those words by laying his hand on his heart, and quoting poetry. “I may say with Dryden,” added the gallant old gentleman:

“‘Old as I am, for ladies’ love unfit, The power of beauty I remember yet.’”

Lady Lundie looked unaffectedly shocked. Mr. Delamayn went a step farther. He interfered on the spot--with the air of a man who feels himself imperatively called upon to perform a public duty.

“Dryden never said that,” he remarked, “I’ll answer for it.”

Sir Patrick wheeled round with the help of his ivory cane, and looked Mr. Delamayn hard in the face.

“Do you know Dryden, Sir, better than I do?” he asked.

The Honorable Geoffrey answered, modestly, “I should say I did. I have rowed three races with him, and we trained together.”

Sir Patrick looked round him with a sour smile of triumph.

“Then let me tell you, Sir,” he said, “that you trained with a man who died nearly two hundred years ago.”

Mr. Delamayn appealed, in genuine bewilderment, to the company generally:

“What does this old gentleman mean?” he asked. “I am speaking of Tom Dryden, of Corpus. Every body in the University knows him.”

“I am speaking,” echoed Sir Patrick, “of John Dryden the Poet. Apparently, every body in the University does not know him!”

Mr. Delamayn answered, with a cordial earnestness very pleasant to see:

“Give you my word of honor, I never heard of him before in my life! Don’t be angry, Sir. I’m not offended with you.” He smiled, and took out his brier-wood pipe. “Got a light?” he asked, in the friendliest possible manner.

Sir Patrick answered, with a total absence of cordiality:

“I don’t smoke, Sir.”

Mr. Delamayn looked at him, without taking the slightest offense:

“You don’t smoke!” he repeated. “I wonder how you get through your spare time?”

Sir Patrick closed the conversation: