"
Out in the greenhouse, meanwhile, Gafferson continued
to regard blankly the shrivelled, fatty leaves of
the plant he had taken up. "Thorpe," he said aloud,
as if addressing the tabid gloxinia--"Thorpe--yes--I
remember his initials--J. S. Thorpe. Now, who's the
man that told me about him? and what was it he told me?"
CHAPTER VII
THE experiences of the breakfast room were very agreeable indeed.
Thorpe found himself the only man present, and, after the
first few minutes of embarrassment at this discovery,
it filled him with surprised delight to note how perfectly
he was at his ease. He could never have imagined
himself seated with four ladies at a table--three
of them, moreover, ladies of title--and doing it all so well.
For one thing, the ladies themselves had a morning manner,
so to speak, which differed widely from the impressions
he had had of their deportment the previous evening.
They seemed now to be as simple and fresh and natural
as the unadorned frocks they wore. They listened with an
air of good-fellowship to him when he spoke; they smiled
at the right places; they acted as if they liked him,
and were glad of his company.
The satisfied conviction that he was talking well,
and behaving well, accompanied him in his progress
through the meal. His confession at the outset of his
great hunger, and of the sinister apprehensions which
had assailed him in his loitering walk about the place,
proved a most fortuitous beginning; after that,
they were ready to regard everything he said as amusing.
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