twinkle:

"I'm a pretty host."

When the lift stopped he had to hold firmly to the seat to prevent its
slipping under him; but after soup and a glass of champagne he felt much
better, and began to enjoy an infirmity which had brought such solicitude
into her manner towards him.

"I should have liked you for a daughter," he said suddenly; and watching
the smile in her eyes, went on:

"You mustn't get wrapped up in the past at your time of life; plenty of
that when you get to my age. That's a nice dress--I like the style."

"I made it myself."

Ah! A woman who could make herself a pretty frock had not lost her
interest in life.

"Make hay while the sun shines," he said; "and drink that up. I want to
see some colour in your cheeks. We mustn't waste life; it doesn't do.
There's a new Marguerite to-night; let's hope she won't be fat. And
Mephisto--anything more dreadful than a fat chap playing the Devil I
can't imagine."

But they did not go to the opera after all, for in getting up from dinner
the dizziness came over him again, and she insisted on his staying quiet
and going to bed early. When he parted from her at the door of the
hotel, having paid the cabman to drive her to Chelsea, he sat down again
for a moment to enjoy the memory of her words: "You are such a darling to
me, Uncle Jolyon!" Why! Who wouldn't be! He would have liked to stay up
another day and take her to the Zoo, but two days running of him would
bore her to death. No, he must wait till next Sunday; she had promised
to come then. They would settle those lessons for Holly, if only for a
month. It would be something. That little Mam'zelle Beauce wouldn't
like it, but she would have to lump it. And crushing his old opera hat
against his chest he sought the lift.

He drove to Waterloo next morning, struggling with a desire to say:
'Drive me to Chelsea.' But his sense of proportion was too strong.
Besides, he still felt shaky, and did not want to risk another aberration
like that of last night, away from home. Holly, too, was expecting him,
and what he had in his bag for her. Not that there was any cupboard love
in his little sweet--she was a bundle of affection. Then, with the
rather bitter cynicism of the old, he wondered for a second whether it
was not cupboard love which made Irene put up with him. No, she was not
that sort either. She had, if anything, too little notion of how to
butter her bread, no sense of property, poor th