"Oh, but he's Mr. Roxbury Medcroft, the great English architect," cried
Mrs. Rodney, in some little confusion. Odell-Carney suddenly remembered.
He glared hard at Brock; the Rodneys saw signs of disaster.
"Oh, by Jove, are _you_ the fellow who put those new windows in the
Chaucer Memorial Hall? 'Pon me soul! Are you the man who did that?"
There was no mistaking his manner; he was distinctly annoyed.
Brock faced the storm coolly, for his friend Medcroft's sake. "I am
Roxbury Medcroft, if that's what you mean, Mr. Odell-Carney."
"I know you're Medcroft, but, hang it all, wot I asked was, did you
design those windows? 'Gad, sir, they're the laughing sensation of the
age. Where the devil did you get such ideas--eh, wot?" His wife had
calmly, diplomatically intervened.
"I hate that man," said Mrs. Medcroft to her supposed husband a few
minutes later. There was a dangerous red in her cheeks, and she was
breathing quickly. Brock gave an embarrassed laugh and mentioned
something audibly about a "stupid ass."
The entire party left on the following day for Innsbruck, where Mr.
Rodney already had reserved the better part of a whole floor for himself
and guests. Mr. Odell-Carney, before they left Munich, brought himself
to the point of apologising to Brock for his peppery remarks. He was
sorry and all that, and he hoped they'd be friends; but the windows were
atrocious, there was no getting around that. His wife smoothed it over
with Edith by confiding to her the lamentable truth that poor
Odell-Carney hadn't the remotest idea what he was talking about half of
the time. After carefully looking Edith over and finding her valuably
bright and attractive, she cordially expressed the hope that she would
come to see her in London.
"We must know each other better, my dear Mrs. Medcroft," she had said
amiably. Edith thought of the famous drawing-rooms in Mayfair and
exulted vastly. "And Mr. Medcroft, too. I am so interested in men who
have a craft. They always are worth while, really, don't you know. How
like an American Mr. Medcroft is. I daresay he gets that from having
lived so long with an American wife. And what a darling baby! She's
wonderfully like Mr. Medcroft, don't you think? No one could mistake
that child's father--never! And, my dear," leaning close with a
whimsical air of confidence, "that's more than can be said of certain
children I know of in very good families."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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