Читать книгу The Peacock Feather. A Romance онлайн

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Breakfast over, he crossed the hall to a small study, where he took a cigarette from a silver box and lighted it. Then he sat down in a chair near the window with the morning paper. It seldom afforded him much satisfaction, however. England, in his opinion, was going to the dogs, and it only annoyed him to see the printed record of its progress towards that deplorable end.

After a few moments he threw the paper from him with a faintly muttered “Damn it, sir!” He had seen that in a by-election a seat had been won by one of the Labour party.

“Going to the dogs, sir; entirely to the dogs!” he muttered. And then he looked out of the window at the people in the street, which street was bathed in May sunshine.

The gardens opposite looked extraordinarily green and spring-like, and nurses with perambulators and children of various sizes were passing along the pavement by the iron railings. They and the sunshine struck a very definite note of buoyancy and youth, and for a moment General Carden felt not entirely as young as he could wish. [Pg 55]The room seemed a little lonely, and the house rather large for one occupant—servants, naturally, did not count. General Carden did not exactly express this thought to his mind in words. He was not a man given to sentimentality either in thought or speech. It was merely represented by a little indefinite and not very pleasant impression. He wheeled his chair round to his writing-desk, which he unlocked, and began looking through various letters with a show of businesslike energy.