ked about, and he
stood quite still for a second, with glassy eyes, as though waiting to
catch up with the significance of what he himself had said; then,
suddenly recollecting that he didn't care a damn, he turned to old
Jolyon: "Well, good-bye, Jolyon! You shouldn't go about without an
overcoat; you'll be getting sciatica or something!" And, kicking the cat
slightly with the pointed tip of his patent leather boot, he took his
huge form away.

When he had gone everyone looked secretly at the others, to see how they
had taken the mention of the word 'drive'--the word which had become
famous, and acquired an overwhelming importance, as the only official--so
to speak--news in connection with the vague and sinister rumour clinging
to the family tongue.

Euphemia, yielding to an impulse, said with a short laugh: "I'm glad
Uncle Swithin doesn't ask me to go for drives."

Mrs. Small, to reassure her and smooth over any little awkwardness the
subject might have, replied: "My dear, he likes to take somebody well
dressed, who will do him a little credit. I shall never forget the drive
he took me. It was an experience!" And her chubby round old face was
spread for a moment with a strange contentment; then broke into pouts,
and tears came into her eyes. She was thinking of that long ago driving
tour she had once taken with Septimus Small.

James, who had relapsed into his nervous brooding in the little chair,
suddenly roused himself: "He's a funny fellow, Swithin," he said, but in
a half-hearted way.

Old Jolyon's silence, his stern eyes, held them all in a kind of
paralysis. He was disconcerted himself by the effect of his own
words--an effect which seemed to deepen the importance of the very rumour
he had come to scotch; but he was still angry.

He had not done with them yet--No, no--he would give them another rub or
two.

He did not wish to rub his nieces, he had no quarrel with them--a young
and presentable female always appealed to old Jolyon's clemency--but that
fellow James, and, in a less degree perhaps, those others, deserved all
they would get. And he, too, asked for Timothy.

As though feeling that some danger threatened her younger brother, Aunt
Juley suddenly offered him tea: "There it is," she said, "all cold and
nasty, waiting for you in the back drawing room, but Smither shall make
you some fresh."

Old Jolyon rose: "Thank you," he said, looking straight at James, "but
I've no time for tea, and--