#original_high_speech Hello again, everyone! This is another s | The High Speech

#original_high_speech
Hello again, everyone! This is another sample of original high speech from The Forsyte Saga, to whose end I am getting ever closer. This time it is going to be an extract from the book 'To Let' chapter XI 'Timothy Prophesies' with a most ironical polylog. This might seem a rather bulky chunk, but its amusing part should make it easier for you. My tiny glossary is there to help you.

Supportive glossary:
deslutory – вялый, монотонный
syncopated – с ударением на слабую долю
mid-off – полевой игрок на левой стороне от боулера (в крикете)
pigeon-pie – пирог "толстяк"
to interject – вклиниться в разговор
munition – завод военного материально-технического снабжения (контекстуальное)
flapper – молоденькая девушка
to hit in the eye – вызывать изумление
disquisition – подробное обсуждение, рассуждение
cryptically – загадочно
cynical – циничный
creak – скрип

Soames stole a glance. No movement in his wife's face! Whether that fellow were coming or not, she evidently knew all about it. It did not escape him that Fleur, too, looked at her mother. If Annette didn't respect his feelings, she might think of Fleur's! The conversation, very desultory, was syncopated by Jack Cardigan talking about "mid-off." He cited all the "great mid-offs" from the beginning of time, as if they had been a definite racial entity in the composition of the British people. Soames had finished his lobster, and was beginning on pigeon-pie, when he heard the words, "I'm a small bit late, Mrs. Dartie," and saw that there was no longer any empty place. That fellow was sitting between Annette and Imogen. Soames ate steadily on, with an occasional word to Maud and Winifred. Conversation buzzed around him. He heard the voice of Profond say:
"I think you're mistaken, Mrs. Forsyde; I'll – I'll bet Miss Forsyde agrees with me."
"In what?" came Fleur's clear voice across the table.
That sharp reply caught the ears of all, and Soames moved uneasily on his thin green chair.
"Well, I don't know, I think they want their own small way, and I think they always did."
"Indeed!"
"Oh, but – Prosper," Winifred interjected comfortably, "the girls in the streets – the girls who've been in munitions, the little flappers in the shops; their manners now really quite hit you in the eye."
At the word "hit" Jack Cardigan stopped his disquisition; and in the silence Monsieur Profond said: "It was inside before, now it's outside; that's all."
"But their morals!" cried Imogen.
"Just as moral as they ever were, Mrs. Cardigan, but they've got more opportunity."
The saying, so cryptically cynical, received a little laugh from Imogen, a slight opening of Jack Cardigan's mouth, and a creak from Soames' chair.