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"I shall rest now," she said, in her fat, kind voice, and I accompanied her from the room, leaving the rest of my guests to take care of themselves. I felt I should throw the cups at their heads if I stayed any longer. There, in the hall, was Antony, quietly reading the papers. His dark-blue and black silk smoking-suit was extraordinarily becoming.
Late one evening, billiards and music being over and the ladies gone, Shelton returned from changing to his smoking-suit, and dropped into one of the great arm-chairs that even in summer made a semicircle round the fendered hearth.
The Water Rat, like the good little fellow he was, sculled steadily on and forbore to disturb him. "I like your clothes awfully, old chap," he remarked after some half an hour or so had passed. "I'm going to get a black velvet smoking-suit myself some day, as soon as I can afford it." "I beg your pardon," said the Mole, pulling himself together with an effort.
What business had he to come down to tea in that absurd amber plush smoking-suit, just because the elder ladies had begged to see it? It was all the more annoying, because he looked so handsome in it. Like most men who are admired by women, he was not much liked by men. But the house to which he came the oftenest was Slumberleigh Rectory. Alwynn.
The dark blue riband, and the star scintillating to eight points, the heavy mantle of blue velvet, with its lining of taffeta and shoulder-knots of white satin, the crimson surcoat, the great embullioned tassels, and the chain of linked gold, and the plumes of ostrich and heron uprising from the black velvet hat these things had for him little significance save as a fine setting, a finer setting than the most elaborate smoking-suit, for that perfection of aspect which the gods had given him.
"Yessir," he replied; and his toneless voice touched in me one or two springs of memory: I was at Keeb; this was the footman who looked after me. But why wasn't I in bed? Had I no, surely it had been no nightmare. Surely I had SEEN Braxton on that white bed. 'The footman was impassively putting away my smoking-suit. I was too dazed to wonder what he thought of me.
And off she sent him, but not without a parting shot from Miss Springle. "Mind you put on a blue velvet smoking-suit, Mr. Dodd, dear. I do love gentlemen in smoking-suits," she said, giggling. Tea was a terrible function. Oh, the difference to the merry tea at Harley!
At daybreak on the morning of the Friday a sentry on the outer edge of the camp at Jarwhal Junction had noticed something black lying upon the ground in the open just outside the door of the Agent's big marquee. He ran across the ground and discovered Captain Ballantyne sprawling, face downwards, in the smoking-suit which he had worn at dinner the night before.
The Water Rat, like the good little fellow he was, sculled steadily on and forebore to disturb him. 'I like your clothes awfully, old chap, he remarked after some half an hour or so had passed. 'I'm going to get a black velvet smoking-suit myself some day, as soon as I can afford it. 'I beg your pardon, said the Mole, pulling himself together with an effort.
"You've seen me in those things! I only wear them when I think nobody sees. They're something from the East," he added, with a tone of careless complacency; for, as a matter of fact, he piqued himself very much upon this smoking-suit which had not, at the Hall, received the applause it deserved. "You go and smoke like that among other men?
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