Suddenly he stopped and glanced up at the houses. He found that he had
passed his aunt's some distance, and, smiling to himself, turned back.
When he entered the somewhat sombre hall, the butler told him that they
had gone in to lunch. He gave one of the footmen his hat and stick
and passed into the dining-room.
"Late as usual, Harry," cried his aunt, shaking her head at him.
He invented a facile excuse, and having taken the vacant seat
next to her, looked round to see who was there. Dorian bowed
to him shyly from the end of the table, a flush of pleasure
stealing into his cheek. Opposite was the Duchess of Harley,
a lady of admirable good-nature and good temper, much liked
by every one who knew her, and of those ample architectural
proportions that in women who are not duchesses are described
by contemporary historians as stoutness. Next to her sat,
on her right, Sir Thomas Burdon, a Radical member of Parliament,
who followed his leader in public life and in private life
followed the best cooks, dining with the Tories and thinking
with the Liberals, in accordance with a wise and well-known rule.
The post on her left was occupied by Mr. Erskine of Treadley,
an old gentleman of considerable charm and culture, who had fallen,
however, into bad habits of silence, having, as he explained
once to Lady Agatha, said everything that he had to say
before he was thirty. His own neighbour was Mrs. Vandeleur,
one of his aunt's oldest friends, a perfect saint amongst women,
but so dreadfully dowdy that she reminded one of a badly
bound hymn-book. Fortunately for him she had on the other
side Lord Faudel, a most intelligent middle-aged mediocrity,
as bald as a ministerial statement in the House of Commons,
with whom she was conversing in that intensely earnest manner
which is the one unpardonable error, as he remarked once himself,
that all really good people fall into, and from which none of them
ever quite escape.
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