ANGEL PAVEMENT

though a very acute listener might have found some
likeness in their voices. Their accent, however, was
quite different, for Mr. Golspie spoke with a breadth of
vowel sound and roughness of consonants that suggested
the toned-down Lowlander or North-country English-
man, whereas his daughter's English did not properly
belong to any part of England, but seemed to be that
international English, of a kind that a clever foreigner
might pick up in the Anglo-Saxon colony in Paris and
that is sometimes spoken by both English and Americans
on the stage, a language without roots and background,
a language for "the talkies/' Indeed, in Lena's company,
you might have felt you were taking part in a "talkie."

"And I intended to tell you when I first came in,"
Mr. Golspie continued, determined to have his say.
"Just to warn you that this daughter o* mine— who
doesn't behave herself as nicely as she looks, I can tell
you—might be landing herself on you."

"Quite all right, of course," said Mr. Dersingham. "I
mean-delighted!"

"Good! No harm done then." And Mr. Golspie sat
down, grinned at his daughter, noticed the decanter
in front of him and promptly helped himself to another
glass of port.

"But I must say," cried Lena, who had now con-
cluded the examination of her own features and was
busy examining everybody's else's, "I thought you'd have
finished dinner hours ago. Did you begin late or have
you been wolfing an awful lot?"

"I think we'd better all go straight into the drawing-
room;' said Mrs, Dersingham hurriedly, "unless you
men feel you must stay and drink some more port."

"Not a bit," said Mr. Golspie heartily. "I'm ready,