Page:In the Roar of the Sea.djvu/310

302 "'Encounter’ was your word."

"Very well—encounter?"

"On Doom Bar."

Coppinger's color changed. A sinister flicker came into his sombre eyes.

"Then," said he slowly, in low vibrating tones, "we shall meet again."

"Certainly, we shall meet again, and conclude our—I use your term—'encounter.'"

Judith did not hear the conversation. She had been pounced upon by Mr. Desiderius Mules.

"Now—positively I must walk through a quadrille with you," said the rector. "This is all my affair; it all springs from me, I arranged everything. I beat up patrons and patronesses. I stirred up the neighborhood. It all turns as a wheel about me as the axle. Come along, the band is beginning to play. You shall positively walk through a quadrille with me." Mr. Mules was not the man to be put on one side, not one to accept a refusal; he carried off the bride to the head of the room and set her in one square.

"Look at the decorations," said Mr. Mules, "I designed them. I hope you will like the supper. I drew up the menu. I chose the wines, and I know they are good. The candles I got at wholesale price—because for a charity. What beautiful diamonds you are wearing. They are not paste, I suppose?"

"I believe not."

"Yet good old paste is just as iridescent as real diamonds. Where did you get them? Are they family jewels? I have heard that the Trevisas were great people at one time. Well, so were the Mules. We are really De Moels. We came in with the Conqueror. That is why I have such a remarkable Christian name. Desiderius is the French Désiré, and a Norman Christian name. Look at the wreaths of laurel and holly. How do you like them?"

"The decorations are charming."

"I am so pleased that you have come," pursued Mr. Mules. "It is your first appearance in public as Mrs. Captain Coppinger. I have been horribly uncomfortable about—you remember what. I have been afraid I had put my foot into it, and might get into hot water. But now you have come here, it is all right; it shows me