Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/139

 "Well!" repeated Lady Drewitt.

"You drag a man from his early and innocent slumbers long before the streets are fit to receive him, precipitate him into taking an unaccustomed meal, hurl at him an heiress and a man of voracious appetite, dubious linen and psychic proclivities, and then you say, 'Well.'" Drewitt shuddered. "I am quite prepared to wait," announced Lady Drewitt with resignation.

"So am I, so why precipitate me into breakfast-parties and marriage," protested Drewitt. "Deacon Quelch, what a horrible name!" he murmured. "It sounds like treading on an egg."

"I want to know what you think of Lola Craven?" Lady Drewitt was not to be diverted from her object.

"I never think of any women I have not met at least half a dozen times, and most women bore me at the third encounter. May I smoke?" he enquired plaintively.

"No, you may not," was the uncompromising reply.

Drewitt smiled a smile of weary resignation.

"I want to speak to you seriously," said Lady Drewitt, with a slight indrawing of her lips.

"My dear aunt, you are always speaking to me seriously," replied Drewitt easily. "You do nothing else, and your unvarying theme is marriage. It gets a little monotonous, I confess," he added with a sigh.