Lady Blemley's house-party was not
bounded on the north by the Bristol Channel, hence there was a
full gathering of her guests round the tea-table on this
particular afternoon. And, in spite of the blankness of the
season and the triteness of the occasion, there was no trace in
the company of that fatigued restlessness which means a dread of
the pianola and a subdued hankering for auction bridge. The
undisguised openmouthed attention of the entire party was fixed on
the homely negative personality of Mr. Cornelius Appin. Of all
her guests, he was the one who had come to Lady Blemley with the
vaguest reputation. Some one had said he was "clever," and he had
got his invitation in the moderate expectation, on the part of his
hostess, that some portion at least of his cleverness would be
contributed to the general entertainment. Until tea-time that day
she had been unable to discover in what direction, if any, his
cleverness lay. He was neither a wit nor a croquet champion, a
hypnotic force nor a begetter of amateur theatricals. Neither did
his exterior suggest the sort of man in whom women are willing to
pardon a generous measure of mental deficiency.
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