Mr. Odell-Carney was a middle-aged Englishman of the extremely
uninitiative type. He was tall and narrow and distant, far beyond what
is commonly accepted as _blase_; indeed, he was especially slow of
speech, even for an Englishman, quite as if it were an everlasting
question with him whether it was worth while to speak at all. One had
the feeling when listening to Mr. Odell-Carney that he was being
favoured beyond words; it took him so long to say anything, that, if one
were but moderately bright, he could finish the sentence mentally some
little time in advance of the speaker, and thus be prepared to properly
appreciate that which otherwise might have puzzled him considerably. It
could not be said, however, that Mr. Odell-Carney was ponderous; he was
merely the effectual result of delay. Perhaps it is safe to agree with
those who knew him best; they maintained that Odell-Carney was a pose,
nothing more.
His wife was quite the opposite in nearly every particular, except
height and angularity. She was bony and red-faced and opinionated. A few
sallow years with a rapid, profligate nobleman had brought her, in
widowhood, to a fine sense of appreciation of the slow-going though
tiresomely unpractical men of the Odell-Carney type. It mattered little
that he made poor investment of the money she had sequestered from his
lordship; he had kept her in the foreground by associating himself with
every big venture that interested the financial smart set.
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