Part 36 (1/2)
”People seem to talk better at an oval table than at a square one.”
”Really. Is that so?”
”Well, I've had precisely the same party twice, once at a square table, once at an oval table. The first dinner was a dull failure, the second a brilliant success. Sit down, won't you?”
”How d'you account for the difference?” said the Father, sitting down, and pulling the tail of his ca.s.sock well under him.
”H'm. I know how you'd account for it.”
”Indeed. How then?”
”At an oval table, since there are no corners, the chain of human sympathy--the electric current, is much more complete. Eh! Let me give you some soup.”
”Thank you.”
The Father took it, and, as he did so, turned his beaming blue eyes on his host. Then he smiled.
”What!” he said, in his pleasant, light tenor voice. ”You do go to church sometimes, then?”
”To-night is the first time for ages. And, mind you, I was tremendously bored.”
The Father still smiled, and his blue eyes gently twinkled.
”Dear, dear!” he said, ”what a pity!”
”But not by the sermon,” Guildea added. ”I don't pay a compliment. I state a fact. The sermon didn't bore me. If it had, I should have said so, or said nothing.”
”And which would you have done?”
The Professor smiled almost genially.
”Don't know,” he said. ”What wine d'you drink?”
”None, thank you. I'm a teetotaller. In my profession and _milieu_ it is necessary to be one. Yes, I will have some soda water. I think you would have done the first.”
”Very likely, and very wrongly. You wouldn't have minded much.”
”I don't think I should.”
They were intimate already. The Father felt most pleasantly at home under the black ceiling. He drank some soda water and seemed to enjoy it more than the Professor enjoyed his claret.
”You smile at the theory of the chain of human sympathy, I see,” said the Father. ”Then what is your explanation of the failure of your square party with corners, the success of your oval party without them?”
”Probably on the first occasion the wit of the a.s.sembly had a chill on his liver, while on the second he was in perfect health. Yet, you see, I stick to the oval table.”
”And that means----”
”Very little. By the way, your omission of any allusion to the notorious part liver plays in love was a serious one to-night.”
”Your omission of any desire for close human sympathy in your life is a more serious one.”