It was the most hospitable thing he could have done, and was of the tact of courts.He arranged his pince nez, and taking the catalogue, applied himself to it.G.Selden's soul warmed within him.To be listened to like this.To be treated as a gentleman by a gentleman--by "a fine old swell like this--Hully gee!""This isn't what I'm used to," he said with genuine enjoyment."It doesn't matter, your not being ready to buy now.You may be sometime, or you may run up against someone who is.Little Willie's always ready to say his piece."He poured it forth with glee--the improved mechanical appliances, the cuts in the catalogue, the platen roller, the ribbon switch, the twenty-six yards of red or blue typing, the fifty per cent.saving in ribbon expenditure alone, the new basket shift, the stationary carriage, the tabulator, the superiority to all other typewriting machines--the price one hundred dollars without discount.And both Mount Dunstan and Mr.Penzance listened entranced, examined cuts in the catalogue, asked questions, and in fact ended by finding that they must repress an actual desire to possess the luxury.The joy their attitude bestowed upon Selden was the thing he would feel gave the finishing touch to the hours which he would recall to the end of his days as the "time of his life."Yes, by gee! he was having "the time of his life."Later he found himself feeling--as Miss Vanderpoel had felt--rather as if the whole thing was a dream.This came upon him when, with Mount Dunstan and Penzance, he walked through the park and the curiously beautiful old gardens.
The lovely, soundless quiet, broken into only by bird notes, or his companions' voices, had an extraordinary effect on him.
"It's so still you can hear it," he said once, stopping in a velvet, moss-covered path."Seems like you've got quiet shut up here, and you've turned it on till the air's thick with it.Good Lord, think of little old Broadway keeping it up, and the L whizzing and thundering along every three minutes, just the same, while we're standing here! You can't believe it."It would have gone hard with him to describe to them the value of his enjoyment.Again and again there came back to him the memory of the grandmother who wore the black net cap trimmed with purple ribbons.Apparently she had remained to the last almost contumaciously British.She had kept photographs of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort on her bedroom mantelpiece, and had made caustic, international comparisons.But she had seen places like this, and her stories became realities to him now.But she had never thought of the possibility of any chance of his being shown about by the lord of the manor himself--lunching, by gee! and talking to them about typewriters.He vaguely knew that if the grandmother had not emigrated, and he had been born in Dunstan village, he would naturally have touched his forehead to Mount Dunstan and the vicar when they passed him in the road, and conversation between them would have been an unlikely thing.Somehow things had been changed by Destiny--perhaps for the whole of them, as years had passed.
What he felt when he stood in the picture gallery neither of his companions could at first guess.He ceased to talk, and wandered silently about.Secretly he found himself a trifle awed by being looked down upon by the unchanging eyes of men in strange, rich garments--in corslet, ruff, and doublet, velvet, powder, curled love locks, brocade and lace.The face of long-dead loveliness smiled out from its canvas, or withheld itself haughtily from his salesman's gaze.Wonderful bare white shoulders, and bosoms clasped with gems or flowers and lace, defied him to recall any treasures of Broadway to compare with them.Elderly dames, garbed in stiff splendour, held stiff, unsympathetic inquiry in their eyes, as they looked back upon him.What exactly was a thirty shilling bicycle suit doing there? In the Delkoff, plainly none were interested.
A pretty, masquerading shepherdess, with a lamb and a crook, seemed to laugh at him from under her broad beribboned straw hat.After looking at her for a minute or so, he gave a half laugh himself--but it was an awkward one.