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Why could not she, and Thyme, and Hilary, and Stephen, and all the people they knew and mixed with, be like him, so sound and healthy, so unravaged by disturbing sympathies, so innocent of "social conscience," so content? As though jealous of these thoughts about her master, the A.i. Damyer stopped of her own accord. "Hallo," said Mr. Purcey, "hallo, I say!
This old man, who was dressed in smoke-grey tweeds which exhaled a poignant scent of peat, looked at him without answering. "I'm afraid your birds saw me coming," Mr. Purcey said again. "In those days," said the aged stranger, "birds were afraid of men." Mr. Purcey's shrewd grey eyes perceived at once that he had a character to deal with. "Ah, yes!" he said; "I see you allude to the present time.
I mean it'd be a pleasure to me to have it. I think it'll be worth a lot of money some day." Bianca did not answer, and Mr. Purcey, feeling suddenly a little awkward, said: "I've got my car waiting. I must be off really." Shaking hands with all of them, he went away. When the door had closed behind his back, a universal sigh went up. It was followed by a silence, which Hilary broke.
Purcey, with his accustomed shrewdness. Stephen gave him the look with which he was accustomed to curdle the blood of persons who gave evidence before Commissions. 'This fellow is impossible, he thought. The little black bees flying below Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace's dark hair, done in the Early Italian fashion, tranquilly sucked honey from Stephen's face.
Purcey would also naturally have been absent from the equation. That Hilary worried over all these questions was the mark of his 'fin de sieclism. And in the meantime the facts demanded a decision.
Instead of a mild, pleasant-looking chap enough, he had become a regular cold devil. "My wife appears to be out," Hilary said. "I also have an engagement." In his surprise and anger Mr. Purcey said with great simplicity, "Sorry I'm 'de trop'!" and soon his car could be heard bearing him away with some unnecessary noise. But Bianca was not out.
B. can be so disagreeable; even now she's not on terms with him! And suddenly the thought of Mr. Purcey leaped into her mind Mr. Purcey, who, as Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace had declared, was not even conscious that there was a problem of the poor. To think of him seemed somehow at that moment comforting, like rolling oneself in a blanket against a draught.
That's very nice. Ha, ha!" The old man answered: "The emotion of fear is inseparably connected with a primitive state of fratricidal rivalry." This sentence put Mr. Purcey on his guard. 'The old chap, he thought, 'is touched. He evidently oughtn't to be out here by himself. He debated, therefore, whether he should hasten away toward his car, or stand by in case his assistance should be needed.
In considering Stephen's attitude towards a woman so firmly embedded in the various social movements of the day, it must be remembered that he represented that large class of men who, unhappily too cultivated to put aside, like Mr. Purcey, all blue subjects, or deny the need for movements to make them less blue, still could not move, for fear of being out of order.
Cecilia, leaning back in her padded corner, glanced askance at Mr. Purcey leaning back in his; an unholy, astonished little smile played on her lips. 'What am I doing? it seemed to say. 'The way he got me here really! And now I am here I'm just going to enjoy it!
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