Explore "Fire in the Thatch" by Edith Caroline Rivett on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Macdonald was in no hurry to get Mr. Gressingham back to the main subject of their conversation: he was too much interested in the man himself. Obviously Tommy Gressingham was not the type of man to inspire Colonel St Cyres with anything but repugnance: he was too complacent, too impudent, too blatantly well-off, but Macdonald had met many men of the same type before. The manner which St Cyres would have described as “bounding” was in one sense a camouflage. It served to conceal the speaker’s thoughts. No one could have guessed the thoughts behind that persistently amiable countenance. Nevertheless, Macdonald knew enough about such men to know that it was a mistake to assume that they were either dishonest or ill-natured au fond—they simply left you guessing, they might be anything.
“I wish you’d answer a purely personal question, Mr. Gressingham,” said Macdonald, and the other said: