DOI Artikel:
Moore, Arthur: Second toughts
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27812#0118
114 Second Thoughts
dreams of its exiled member, abandoned to a horde of workmen,
a mere wilderness of paint and whitewash ; and it was with a
touch of resentment that he accepted the direction of an indifferent
hall-porter to an unfamiliar edihce in Pall Mall as its temporary
substitute. Entering the smoking-room, a little diffidently, on
the evening of his arrival in London, he found himself eyed, at
first with faint curiosity, by two or three of the men upon whom
his gaze rested expectantly, but in no case was this curiosity—
prompted doubtless by that touch of the exotic which sometimes
clings to dwellers in the East—the precursor of the kindly
recognition, the surprised, incredulous greeting which he had
hoped for. After a few days he was simply ignored ; his face,
rather stern, with its distinctive Indian tan through which the
grey eyes looked almost blue, his erect figure, and dark hair
sparsely flecked with a frosty white, had become familiar ; he had
visited his tailor, and his garments no longer betrayed him to the
curious by their fashion of Rangoon.
The Blue-book, which he had been quick to interrogate,
informed him that his old friend Hibbert lived in Portman Square,
and that the old lady who was the guardian of his nieces had a
house at Hampstead: further inquiry at the addresses thus
obtained left him baffled by the intelligence that Colonel
Hibbert was in Norway, his nieces at school in Switzerland.
Mackinnon, late of the Woods and Forests, whom he met at
Burlington House, raised his hopes for an instant by a greeting
which sounded precisely the note of cordiality that he yearned for,
only to dash them by expressing a hope that he should see more
of his old friend in the autumn ; he was off to Southampton to
join a friend's yacht on the morrow, and after his cruise he had
designs on Scotland and the grouse.
Sir Geoffrey, chained to the neighbourhood of London by legal
business
dreams of its exiled member, abandoned to a horde of workmen,
a mere wilderness of paint and whitewash ; and it was with a
touch of resentment that he accepted the direction of an indifferent
hall-porter to an unfamiliar edihce in Pall Mall as its temporary
substitute. Entering the smoking-room, a little diffidently, on
the evening of his arrival in London, he found himself eyed, at
first with faint curiosity, by two or three of the men upon whom
his gaze rested expectantly, but in no case was this curiosity—
prompted doubtless by that touch of the exotic which sometimes
clings to dwellers in the East—the precursor of the kindly
recognition, the surprised, incredulous greeting which he had
hoped for. After a few days he was simply ignored ; his face,
rather stern, with its distinctive Indian tan through which the
grey eyes looked almost blue, his erect figure, and dark hair
sparsely flecked with a frosty white, had become familiar ; he had
visited his tailor, and his garments no longer betrayed him to the
curious by their fashion of Rangoon.
The Blue-book, which he had been quick to interrogate,
informed him that his old friend Hibbert lived in Portman Square,
and that the old lady who was the guardian of his nieces had a
house at Hampstead: further inquiry at the addresses thus
obtained left him baffled by the intelligence that Colonel
Hibbert was in Norway, his nieces at school in Switzerland.
Mackinnon, late of the Woods and Forests, whom he met at
Burlington House, raised his hopes for an instant by a greeting
which sounded precisely the note of cordiality that he yearned for,
only to dash them by expressing a hope that he should see more
of his old friend in the autumn ; he was off to Southampton to
join a friend's yacht on the morrow, and after his cruise he had
designs on Scotland and the grouse.
Sir Geoffrey, chained to the neighbourhood of London by legal
business