The entertainments arising out of business were usually
on a scale more or less sumptuous. They took place in
big, well-known restaurants, and included a look at many
of the people who seem to lend themselves so willingly
to the great buzzing show that anybody can pay for in
London, their names in the paper in the morning, their
faces at Prince's in the evening, their personalities no
doubt advantageously exposed in various places during
the day. But there were others, humbler ones in Earl's
Court Road or Maida Vale, where the members of the
deputation had relatives whom it was natural to hunt up.
Long years and many billows had rolled between, and more
effective separations had arisen in the whole difference
of life; still, it was natural to hunt them up, to seek
in their eyes and their hands the old subtle bond of kin,
and perhaps--such is our vanity in the new lands--to show
them what the stock had come to overseas. They tended to
be depressing these visits: the married sister was living
in a small way; the first cousin seemed to have got into
a rut; the uncle and aunt were failing, with a stooping,
trembling, old-fashioned kind of decrepitude, a rigidity
of body and mind, which somehow one didn't see much over
home.
"England," said Poulton, the Canadian-born, "is a dangerous
country to live in; you run such risks of growing old.
Pages:
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188