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Updated: June 12, 2025
But that young man appeared to be in an innocently merry mood; he gaily taunted Herby, as he chose to call him, with loss of nerve; he tormented his sister because she didn't seem to know what Portlaw's discards meant; and no wonder, because he discarded from an obscure system taught him by Malcourt.
Malcourt sauntered over to a card table, seated himself, motioned Portlaw to the chair opposite, and removed the cover from a new pack. Then, to Portlaw's astonishment, he began to take aces and court cards from any part of the pack at his pleasure; any card that Portlaw called for was produced unerringly.
Malcourt aroused her and sent her off to bed. Then she roamed through the rooms, striving to occupy her mind with the negative details of the furnishing; but it was all drearily harmless, unaccented anywhere by personal taste, merely the unmeaning harmony executed by a famous New York decorator, at Portlaw's request a faultless monotony from garret to basement.
Portlaw's eyes bulged; Hamil had to bend his head low over his plate, but Malcourt's bland impudence remained unperturbed. "Good God!" muttered Portlaw; "Hamil, did you ever hear of passing electricity through a salad dressing composed of olive oil, astragon, Arequipa pepper, salt, Samara mustard, essence of anchovy, chives, distilled fresh mushrooms, truffles pickled in 1840 port did you?"
In the morning he left for the North and Portlaw's camp. Gray drove him to the station; Cecile, in distractingly pretty negligee waved him audacious adieu from her window. "Shiela seems to be ill," explained Gray, as the motor car shot out into the haze of early morning. "She asked me to say good-bye for her.... I say, Hamil, you're looking rather ill yourself.
So Malcourt went to New York next morning convinced that Portlaw's bachelor days were numbered; aware, also, that as soon as Mrs. Ascott took the helm his own tenure of office would promptly expire. He wished it to expire, easily, agreeably, naturally; and that is why he had chosen to shove Portlaw in the general direction of the hymeneal altar.
But Cecile went on headlong in the wake of her own ideas. "He's a sort of a relative; we've always known him. He and Gray used to go camping in Maine and he often spent months in our house. But for two years now, he's been comparatively busy he's Mr. Portlaw's manager, you know, and we've seen nothing of him which was quite agreeable to me." Hamil rose, unquiet.
Neither offered to shake hands; Malcourt, lightly formal, spoke of Hamil's illness in a few words, using that excellent taste which was at his command when he chose to employ it. He expressed his pleasure in Hamil's recovery, and said that he was ready at any time to take up the unfinished details of Portlaw's business, agreeing with Hamil that there remained very little to talk over.
For they sneered at the trout, calling them "char," patronised the rather scanty pheasantry, commented on the kennels, stables, and gardens in a manner that brought the red into Portlaw's face and left him silent while luncheon lasted. After luncheon Tressilvain tried the billiards, but found the game inferior to the English game.
"It was kind of you, Wayward; I don't know how to tell you how kind but your boat's a corker and you are another " "Do you like this sort of thing?" asked Wayward grimly. "Like it? It's only a part of your ordinary lives yours and Portlaw's; so you are not quite fitted to understand. But, Wayward, I've been in heavy harness. You have been doing this sort of heavenly thing how many years?"
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