As to David Munroe; he was a huge man of swarthy complexion, slow of speech and of movement, and with large, rather melancholy brown eyes.
“Hullo! We must be arriving. Isn’t it terrifying arriving at a new house? It’s like going to parties when one was a child—‘are you sure there’s a clean pocket handkerchief in your sporran, master Rory?’”
David, turning a puzzled, rather suspicious, look upon him, said slowly, “Are you Scotch?”
“Lord, yes! I never get my ‘wills and shalls’ right, and I talk about ‘table-maids’ and all sorts of things. Here we are.”
As they got into the hall, Guy and Arnold came out from the billiard-room.
“Hullo, Rory!” said Guy, “you can’t have a bath before dinner because _I’m_ going to have one.”
“You’ll have to have it with Concha then, Guy,” said Arnold, “she’s there regularly from seven till eight. I wish to God this house had more bathrooms. Hullo! You’ve got a paper, Dundas—I want to see the latest news about the Strike.”
In the meanwhile, David Munroe stood in the background, looking embarrassed and rather sulky, and Rendall, the butler, who secretly deplored “Mr. Arnold’s” manners, said soothingly, “I’ll have your bag taken up to your room, sir.” Whereupon Arnold looked up from the paper, greeted him with sullen excuses, took him up to his room, and hurriedly left him.
Half an hour later David walked into the drawing-room, forlorn and shy, in full evening dress. All the party, except Rory, were already assembled, and he felt still more uncomfortable when in a flash he realised that the other men were in dinner-jackets and black ties.
“Ah! How are you, Munroe?” cried Dick heartily, “very pleased to see you. So sorry I wasn’t there when you arrived—didn’t hear the car. Let me introduce you to my wife.”
“How do you do, Mr. Munroe. How clever of you to be dressed in time!” said the Doña. There was always a note of irony in her voice, and it was confirmed by the myopic contraction of her eyes; so David imagined, quite erroneously, that she was “having a dig” at his tails and white waistcoat. Nor did Dick improve matters by saying, “I say, Munroe, you put us all to shame.”
Then Rory came in, so easily, chattering and laughing as if he had known them all his life—also in a dinner-jacket and a black tie; because, if poor David had only known, Arnold had told him it was “just a family party and he needn’t bother about tails.”