‘Well, I mustn’t keep you, sir. Pleased to have made your acquaintance.’
He took off his dingy hat very politely and strolled away. It was beginning
now to grow chilly and I thought I would return to the Dolphin. As I reached
its broad steps a landau drove up, drawn by two scraggy horses, and from it
stepped Mr St Clair. He wore a hat that looked like the unhappy result of a
union between a bowler and a top–hat. He gave his hand to his wife and then
to his niece. The porter carried in after them rugs and cushions. As Mr St Clair
paid the driver I heard him tell him to come at the usual time next day and I
understood that the St Clairs took a drive every afternoon in a landau. It would
not have surprised me to learn that none of them had ever been in a motor–car.
The manageress told me that they kept very much to themselves and sought
no acquaintance among the other persons staying at the hotel. I rode my
imagination on a loose rein. I watched them eat three meals a day. I watched
Mr and Mrs St Clair sit at the top of the hotel steps in the morning. He read The
Times and she knitted. I suppose Mrs St Clair had never read a paper in her life,
for they never took anything but The Times and Mr St Clair of course took it
with him every day to the City. At about twelve Miss Porchester joined them.
‘Have you enjoyed your walk, Eleanor?’ asked Mrs St Clair.
‘It was very nice, Aunt Gertrude,’ answered Miss Porchester.
And I understand that just as Mrs St Clair took ‘her drive’ every afternoon
Miss Porchester took ‘her walk’ every morning.
‘When you have come to the end of your row, my dear,’ said Mr St Clair, with
a glance at his wife’s knitting, ‘we might go for a constitutional before
luncheon.’
‘That will be very nice,’ answered Mrs St Clair. She folded up her work and
gave it to Miss Porchester. ‘If you’re going upstairs, Eleanor, will you take my
work?’
‘Certainly, Aunt Gertrude.’
‘I dare say you’re a little tired after your walk, my dear.’
‘I shall have a little rest before luncheon.’
Miss Porchester went into the hotel and Mr and Mrs St Clair walked slowly
along the sea–front, side by side, to a certain point, and then walked slowly
back.
When I met one of them on the stairs I bowed and received an unsmiling,
polite bow in return, and in the morning I ventured upon a ‘good day’ but there
the matter ended. It looked as though I should never have a chance to speak to
any of them. But presently I thought that Mr St Clair gave me now and then a
glance, and thinking he had heard my name I imagined, perhaps vainly, that he
looked at me with curiosity. And a day or two after that I was sitting in my
room when the porter came in with a message.
‘Mr St Clair presents his compliments and could you oblige him with the
loan of Whitaker’s Almanack.’
I was astonished.
‘Why on earth should he think that I have a Whitaker’s Almanack?’
‘Well, sir, the manageress told him you wrote.’
I could not see the connexion.
‘Tell Mr St Clair that I’m very sorry that I haven’t got a Whitaker’s Almanack,
but if I had I would very gladly lend it to him.’
Here was my opportunity. I was by now filled with eagerness to know these
fantastic persons more closely. Now and then in the heart of Asia I have come
upon a lonely tribe living in a little village among an alien population.