five minutes at the Country Club. The strong probability was, moreover,
that he thought the worse of her for allowing herself to be nearly
drowned in so vulgarly public a way. However, she was untroubled; she
thought him, for her part, adorable to look at and of a splendid manner
and conceit; and aloud she inquired, with her air of shining
indifference, if Mr. Canning was not delighted with the Beach
in October.
"Well, you know, I think I've been here before"--he said _bean_, most
deliciously--"only I can't be quite sure. It seems to me a most
agreeable place. Only, if it isn't indiscreet to inquire, what does one
do in the evening?"
"Usually, I believe, one goes to bed directly after dinner. If one does
this, and dines extremely late, the evening slips by quite nicely,
we find."
"But the afternoons? Wouldn't they perhaps loom a thought long at times,
waiting on for dinner?"
"There's napping provided for the afternoon, you see. And many other
diversions, such as reading, walking, and thinking."
"Perhaps one should arrange to spend only afternoons at the Beach. You
make them sound simply uproarious."
"We're a simple people here, Mr. Canning, with simple joys and sorrows,
easily amused."
Mr. Canning looked down at her. However, Carlisle did not meet his gaze.
Having already, in a quiet way, given him two looks where they would do
the most good, she was now glancing maidenly at mamma, who conversed
vice-presidentially of her Associated Charities policies.
"They must be brought to help themselves!" Mrs. Heth was saying.
"Wholesale, thoughtless generosity is demoralizing to poverty. It is
sheer ruination to their moral fibre."
"Promiscuous charity!--ruination! Just what I always say," chirped
Willie. "Look at ancient Rome, ma'am. Began giving away corn to the
poor, and, by gad!--she fell!"...
"Delightful! I see I shall like it here," Mr. Canning was observing--and
was there perceptible the slightest thawing in his somewhat formidable
manner?... "I too," said he, "have dwelt in Arcady."
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