Uncle Donald's walrus moustache heaved gently upon his laboured breath, like seaweed on a ground-swell. There had been stairs to climb.
“What's this? What's this?” he contrived to ejaculate at last. “You packing?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Carmyle, shortly. For the first time in his life he was conscious of that sensation of furtive guilt which was habitual with his cousin Ginger when in the presence of this large, mackerel-eyed man.
This dialogue has been set down as though it had been as brisk and snappy as any cross-talk between vaudeville comedians, but in reality Uncle Donald's peculiar methods of conversation had stretched it over a period of nearly three minutes: for after each reply and before each question he had puffed and sighed and inhaled his moustache with such painful deliberation that his companion's nerves were finding it difficult to bear up under the strain.
“You're going after that girl,” said Uncle Donald, accusingly.
Bruce Carmyle flushed darkly. And it is interesting to record that at this moment there flitted through his mind the thought that Ginger's behaviour at Bleke's Coffee House, on a certain notable occasion, had not been so utterly inexcusable as he had supposed. There was no doubt that the Family's Chosen One could be trying.
“Will you have a whisky and soda, Uncle Donald?” he said, by way of changing the conversation.
“Yes,” said his relative, in pursuance of a vow he had made in the early eighties never to refuse an offer of this kind. “Gimme!”
You would have thought that that would have put matters on a pleasanter footing. But no. Having lapped up the restorative, Uncle Donald returned to the attack quite un-softened.
“Never thought you were a fool before,” he said severely.
Bruce Carmyle's proud spirit chafed. This sort of interview, which had become a commonplace with his cousin Ginger, was new to him. Hitherto, his actions had received neither criticism nor been subjected to it.
“You are a fool. A damn fool,” continued Uncle Donald, specifying more exactly. “Don't like the girl. Never did. Not a nice girl. Didn't like her. Right from the first.”
“Need we discuss this?” said Bruce Carmyle, dropping, as he was apt to do, into the grand manner.
The Head of the Family drank in a layer of moustache and blew it out again.