Page:Herbert Jenkins - Patricia Brent Spinster.djvu/85

 had once expressed it, which had earned for him a stern rebuke from Miss Wangle. In the afternoon Mr. Sefton returned to the Park, and in the evening yet again.

Mr. Sefton had a secret that was slowly producing in him misanthropy. His nature was tropical and his courage arctic, which, coupled with his forty-five years, was a great obstacle to his happiness. In dress he was a dandy, at heart he was a craven and, never daring, he was consumed with his own fire.

The other guests at Galvin House drifted in and out, said the same things, wore the same clothes, with occasional additions, had the same thoughts; whilst over all, as if to compose the picture, brooded the reek of cooking.

The atmosphere of Galvin House was English, the cooking was English, and the lack of culinary imagination also was English. There were two and a half menus for the one o'clock Sunday dinner. Roast mutton, onion sauce, cabbage, potatoes, fruit pie, and custard; alternated for four weeks with roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, cauliflower, roast potatoes, and lemon pudding. Then came roast pork, apple sauce, potatoes, greens with stewed fruit and cheese afterwards. The cuisine was in itself a calendar. If your first Sunday were a roast-pork Sunday, you knew without mental effort on every roast-pork Sunday exactly how many months you had been there. If for a moment you had forgotten the day, and