“Yes,” said Ingolls firmly. “Very slightly, and very decorously, drunk.”
He gave an order to Lena and led the way into the room which he called library and everyone else in the house his study. It was a very pleasant place: all the southern wall was windows through which the garden and the oaks beyond it seemed impossibly to give ever-changing vistas; there were books from floor to ceiling; there were water-colours of ships and a lovely head in oils of Clare as a child; there were deep chairs of leather and the biggest writing-table Otto had ever seen; there were pipe-racks and cigars and a sheep-dog which lay before the hearth and ashtrays everywhere within reach and a single silver bowl of roses and two inkwells made of gold-mounted horses’ hoofs. And now there was Lena with a tray which bore bubble-goblets and a strangely shaped bottle: she set it down upon a table near Ingolls’ chair and then turned quickly to hover solicitous about Otto as he set down his stick and lowered himself into another great chair and carefully arranged his legs before him, the jointed splints clanking weirdly beneath his trousers.
And then Lena was gone and Ingolls was pouring great golden splashes into the goblets. He smiled at Otto and they drank after warming the smooth glass in their palms, and Ingolls began to talk again and Otto listened carefully, but was conscious all the while that the time of healing was over and that he could now, so soon as he was alone, begin work upon the finding of the answer.
Ingolls was talking about his work, and the talk was of interest and Otto was conscious that he was glad of the respite which was being forced upon him; glad to enjoy this hour when he must not think of his problem; glad that he was here in this place with this man; glad of the brandy; glad to glance every once in a while at the picture of the child Clare; glad to pretend for this little time that he was what Ingolls thought him to be. He said:
“I know that your work is . . . is in connection with the farmers, but I do not know exactly what it is.”
Ingolls laughed. He stood up and lifted the bottle and poured more into the glasses. On the hearth, the dog lifted its head and followed him with its eyes and then, satisfied, put the head down again.
“I’ll tell you what we call it,” Ingolls said. “It’s resounding. We call it Advisory Agricultural Expert—or rather, I do.”
Otto sipped at his brandy. He said, slowly:
“Advisory Agricultural Expert.” He savoured the last word: all of his training made it impressive. “You must have studied for a long time the . . . the scientific aspects of the business of farming.”
Again Ingolls laughed. He said:
“You make it sound very important. And very difficult. It isn’t. It’s a technical profession, and quite a lot of fun because there aren’t many people in it yet and I manage, with a lot of clients and a couple of patents and some Government work, to make quite a bit of money at it. Have some brandy?”
He poured more into Otto’s glass and then his own. He was feeling, very evidently, well pleased with life and Otto and himself.
Otto said: “You have done this . . . this agricultural work since you were a young man?” He was very careful with his words. He was feeling the liquor and was glad of the sensation. He was also genuinely interested, the way he always had been in other men’s lives if these were active.
Ingolls was tilting his goblet. He said, when he set it down:
“I was born in a farming country. Then I left it for a while. Then I came back to it. Drink up, man; you’re very slow.” He stood suddenly and crossed to a far corner of the room. The dog lifted its head again and watched him. He opened a cupboard below the book-shelves and found an album of recordings and busied himself with the radio cabinet and in a moment there was music filling the quietness of the room; the gay, romantically martial music of Offenbach as welded and blended for the ballet called
Otto forgot about farming. He swayed his glass in time to the vivid opening and then drank and then kept the beat with head and hand as the carefree, toy-soldier chorus slid into the sabre-swinging sweetness of the next melody, irresistibly calling to a man’s mind a wish-picture of himself, having conquered worlds, laying them at the feet of a maiden who could safely be depended upon to return them accompanied by her own delightful person.
The dog lowered its head and slept again as Ingolls came back. He lifted the bottle again and looked across at Otto with raised eyebrows and a smile and then did not wait for any yes or no but poured a bigger libation than any. The music went on, alternately militant and romantic, bacchanal and nostalgic, but always and inevitably gay and courageous and inspiriting.