Oliver sighed--Nancy's firmness had admittedly quite ruined all the better
things in life--but even the merest sort of mere existence had got to be,
at times, a rather pleasant convention--how pleasant, he felt, he had never
quite realized somehow until just now. Then, with a vague idea of getting
whatever was to happen over with as quickly and decently as possible, he
settled his tie once more and trotted meekly through the dining-room and
beyond the curtains.
XL
"Why, Mr. Piper!" was Oliver's first and wholly inane remark.
It was not what he had intended to say at all--something rather more
dramatic and on the lines of "Shoot if you must this old grey head, but if
you will only listen to a reasonable explanation--" had been uppermost in
his mind. But the sight of Peter's father crouched over what must be Mrs.
Severance's body, his weak hands fumbling for her wrist and heart, his
voice thin with a senile sorrow as if he had been stricken at once and
in an instant with a palsy of incurable age, brought the whole world of
Southampton and house-parties and reality that Oliver thought he had lost
touch with forever, back to him so vividly that all he could do was gape at
the tableau on the floor.
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