Читать книгу The Peacock Feather. A Romance онлайн

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As the car turned into the Park, General Carden sat rather more upright. He watched the carriages and their occupants with attention, his old eyes keen to observe and note any of them he knew. And when he did, off came that glossy silk hat with a bow and a gesture worthy of a courtier. However much abreast of the times he might choose to consider himself, in his heart he knew he was of the old school, and one even older than that of his own youth. He belonged, this courtly old man, to the delightful old school where men treated women with chivalry and protection, and where women in their turn accepted these things with delicate grace and charm; where conversation had meant a pretty display of wit, a keen fencing of words, where brusquerie was a thing unknown; [Pg 58]and where a fine and subtle irony had stood in the place of a certain curt rudeness noticeable in the present day. Yet all that was of the past. It would be as out of place now as would be one of those dainty ladies of old years, in powder and brocade, among the tight-skirted women in Bond Street. But very deep down in his heart General Carden knew it was the school which he loved, and of which he allowed himself occasionally to dream. Those dreams were dreamt mainly on winter evenings in a chair before the study fire. And then, very surreptitiously, General Carden would bring a tiny gold box from his pocket—a dainty octagon box with an exquisite bit of old enamel, blue as a sapphire, let into the lid—and, opening it, he would take an infinitesimal pinch of brown powder between his first finger and thumb. He was always most extremely careful that no single grain of it should fall on his white shirt-front. Goring’s eyes were at times unaccountably sharp. He was not going to be caught snuff-taking by a man who might look upon it as a sign of old age advancing. The little gold box, when not on his own person, was kept locked in a small antique cabinet in his dressing-room.