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Its special peculiarity was an old smoking-jacket, out at the elbows, ragged at the cuffs, and frayed at the silk collar; Hanway had never before seen a man wear a red coat, or such foot-gear as the slipshod embroidered velvet slippers in which he shuffled to a chair and sat down, tilted back, with his hands in the pockets of his gray trousers.
The sun was shining brightly into his room, when Harry Scott was awakened the next morning by a woman's scream, followed by cries and sobs and a confused sound of running to and fro. Almost before he could collect his thoughts, he heard steps approaching his room, and, rising, hastily exchanged the smoking-jacket in which he had slept for a coat.
Eva, the expert, wrestling with Carrie over the problem of the new spring dress. They never guessed that the commonplace man in the frayed old smoking-jacket had banished them all from the room long ago; had banished himself, for that matter. In his place was a tall, debonair, and rather dangerously handsome man to whom six o'clock spelled evening clothes.
The round pool of light which spread out beneath the lamp was behind Ballantyne when he turned to the doorway, so Thresk for a moment was only aware of him as a big heavily-built man in a smoking-jacket and a starched white shirt; and it was to that starched white shirt that he spoke, making his apologies. He was glad too to delay for a second or two the moment when he must speak to Stella.
As she thought of it, Ann was standing over a battered army-chest, open and half full of well-worn cavalry uniforms. "Really, Leila," she said, "these old army clothes had better be disposed of and that shabby smoking-jacket I have not seen it for years. Why do men keep their useless, shabby clothes?"
The fourth member, a stout and florid gentleman of a somewhat sporting appearance, in a short smoking-jacket and black tie, sighed enviously. "Fancy one of us being as cool as that, if he knew he had to stand up within an hour and rattle off a speech in Parliament. I'd be in a devil of a funk myself.
If my boss was to see the old red wool smoking-jacket I wear around the house, he'd fire me for burlesquing the business." "Well, of all the nerve! Let go my hand." "Didn't know I had it, little one." "And say, you give back that kodak picture you swiped off me yesterday. I don't give my photographs out promiscuous." "That little snap-shot of you? Nix, I will!
Reimers was no longer surprised. The aristocratic cavalry-officer was considered the richest and smartest sportsman in Germany. First, Reimers asked for his smoking-jacket, and then told Gähler to help him in unpacking the case of books which had just arrived from Suez. Gähler handed him the volumes, and could not help remarking: "You have an awful lot of books, sir!"
It seemed very odd that the man who protested that his stay in the mountains was so temporary, and whose stay in the world was evidently so short, should spend his obviously scanty substance in purchase after purchase of the worthless mountain wilderness. To be sure, the land was cheap, but it cost something. And Hanway looked again at the frayed cuffs and elbows of the red smoking-jacket.
From the ladies' gowns, it was obvious that they were going somewhere; and, by the rector's ruffled hair and shabby smoking-jacket, that he would be staying at home, busy over money affairs the eternal worry of this household. The rector was even now struggling with his accounts. The clever man seemed to be a fool before the realities of life as set down in numerals.
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