Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/239

 and sunset sea, and the drive to the eighteenthcentury Gothic mansion. A giant behind a hedge in spectacles and a great cape trundled a wheelbarrow out from among the rhododendrons. Then the red drawing-room, and gentle, tired little Mrs. Tennyson rising nervously from her sofa. A soft grey gown, a soft, beseeching, wedge-like face, a woman who would give her life to protect the great man entrusted to her keeping, the woman who did more than any one else to build up the vast legend of his name. The two women fluttered towards each other. Lanice managed a few comments on the trip from Yarmouth Pier, a remark or two about the luxuriant verdure of the island.

Mrs. Tennyson expectantly glanced again and again towards the door behind Lanice, through which her giant might materialize. More breaks in the spineless chatter, more glances towards the door. A hush. ('Strange, Mrs. Tennyson seems as much awed by the idea of seeing Tennyson as I am.') And at the threshold stood the dark presence of the Laureate. The silence became awful as he advanced upon his guest. If it were he who had so recently trundled the wheelbarrow, his hands were now washed and his spectacles laid aside. He held in one hand a sprig of laburnum which he had intended to give the young lady as a keepsake, but already had forgotten. His dark, near-sighted eyes screwed her through as he waited Mrs. Tennyson's apprehensive introduction.

'Ah,' he growled amiably, 'you are by no means the first of your nationality to seek me out.'