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XV
When Flory arrived at the Club he found the Lackersteens in an unusually morose mood. Mrs
Lackersteen was sitting, as usual, in the best place under the punkah, and was reading the Civil List,
the Debrett of Burma. She was in a bad temper with her husband, who had defied her by ordering a
‘large peg’ as soon as he reached the Club, and was further defying her by reading the Pink’un.
Elizabeth was alone in the stuffy little library, turning over the pages of an old copy of Blackwood’s.
Since parting with Flory, Elizabeth had had a very disagreeable adventure. She had come out of her
bath and was half-way through dressing for dinner when her uncle had suddenly appeared in her
room–pretext, to hear some more about the day’s shooting–and begun pinching her leg in a way that
simply could not be misunderstood. Elizabeth was horrified. This was her first introduction to the fact
that some men are capable of making love to their nieces. We live and learn. Mr Lackersteen had tried
to carry the thing off as a joke, but he was too clumsy and too nearly drunk to succeed. It was
fortunate that his wife was out of hearing, or there might have been a first-rate scandal.
After this, dinner was an uncomfortable meal. Mr Lackersteen was sulking. What rot it was, the
way these women put on airs and prevented you from having a good time! The girl was pretty enough
to remind him of the illustrations in La Vie Parisienne, and damn it! wasn’t he paying for her keep? It
was a shame. But for Elizabeth the position was very serious. She was penniless and had no home
except her uncle’s house. She had come eight thousand miles to stay here. It would be terrible if after
only a fortnight her uncle’s house were to be made uninhabitable for her.
Consequently, one thing was much surer in her mind than it had been: that if Flory asked her to
marry him (and he would, there was little doubt of it), she would say yes. At another time it is just
possible that she would have decided differently. This afternoon, under the spell of that glorious,
exciting, altogether ‘lovely’ adventure, she had come near to loving Flory; as near as, in his particular
case, she was able to come. Yet even after that, perhaps, her doubts would have returned. For there
had always been something dubious about Flory; his age, his birthmark, his queer, perverse way of
talking–that ‘highbrow’ talk that was at once unintelligible and disquieting. There had been days when
she had even disliked him. But now her uncle’s behaviour had turned the scale. Whatever happened
she had got to escape from her uncle’s house, and that soon. Yes, undoubtedly she would marry Flory
when he asked her!
He could see her answer in her face as he came into the library. Her air was gentler, more yielding
than he had known it. She was wearing the same lilac-coloured frock that she had worn that first