Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/148



THEL FROBISHER and Duncan Scott were peculiarly wise young people, and not in the least like the "Duck and Ethel" of the shop-boy's world, wonderful creatures who lived in an atmosphere of champagne and motor-cars, yachts and fur coats, Monte Carlo and mystery. The common man dreams of a heaven paved with gold; the wise man would be well content with a heaven of flowers. Nor is it unnatural that the poor, envious industrial crowd should clutch at material things. And, no doubt, the shopgirl viewed Ethel Frobisher as a sort of super-courtezan, loaded with sensual love and diamonds, a gorgeous butterfly, the symbol of all the garish and sensational life that exists only in the mind of the poor little materialist.

Scott was a Balliol man; and had been a schoolmaster, and Ethel Frobisher had come from a Somersetshire parsonage. Both had a sense of humour, and an ironical appreciation of "fame" as it had befallen themselves. They laughed over it. There was nothing American in their mental make-up.

To "Ethel and Duck" Mr. Roland brought other refreshments than the Pelican could offer, and they accepted him with delight and a sense of happy relief. Escaping from a world of cads and of bounders it was pleasant to meet this placid and humorous person to whom it was not necessary to explain the fact that a bowl of roses, or a piece of music, or a rolling puppy might be utterly satisfying things.

They spent the evenings in Roland's den, talking and making music, and laughing at life and each other.

"Guess my wife's ambition, Roland?"

It was to have a garden and a paddock and a small car and two dogs, and to grow Darwin tulips and Hybrid Teas and Phlox, and to go up to town three days in every month, and never to enter a picture-house.

"That dream ought to be realized—rather easily."