Page:A strange, sad comedy (IA strangesadcomedy00seawiala).pdf/180

168 disagreeable—and how dared he talk so coolly of her marrying Sir Archy, without one single qualifying word of regret? And just as Farebrother intended, his suggestion did not help her to regard Sir Archy with any increase of favor.

"There he is now," cried Farebrother, "shall I make off so as to give him a chance?

Letty was so staggered by the novelty and iniquity of Farebrother's perfect willingness to give her up to Sir Archy that she could not recover herself all at once—and the next thing, Sir Archy had tramped through the underbush to them, looking wonderfully handsome and stalwart in his knickerbockers and his glengarry pulled over his eyes.

If Letty found that Farebrother was always joking and difficult to reduce to seriousness, she could find no such fault with Sir Archy. He was the literal and exact Briton, who took everything au sérieux, and whose humor was of the broad and obvious kind that prevails in the tight little island. He was as much puzzled by the status of affairs between Letty and Farebrother as Ethel Maywood was—and could hardly refrain sometimes from classing Letty as a flirt—a word that meant to him