Page:Leon Wilson - Ruggles of Red Gap.djvu/361

Rh like that. Plenty champagne! Not happen every day! Ha! ha!"

To my acute distress he here thumbed me in the ribs and laughed again. Was he, too, I wondered, madly resolved to be a dead sportsman in the face of the unavoidable? I sought to edge in a discreet word of condolence, for I knew that between us there need be no pretence.

"I know you did your best, sir," I observed. "And I was never quite free of a fear that the woman would prove too many for us. I trust the Honourable George"

But I had said as much as he would let me. He interrupted me with his thumb again, and on his face was what in a lesser person I should unhesitatingly have called a leer.

"You dog, you! Woman prove too many for us, what, what! Dare say you knew what to expect. Silly old George! Though how she could ever have fancied the juggins"

I was about to remark that the creature had of course played her game from entirely sordid motives and I should doubtless have ventured to applaud the game spirit in which he was taking the blow. But before I could shape my phrases on this delicate ground Mrs. Effie, the Senator, and Cousin Egbert arrived. They somewhat formally had the air of being expected. All of them rushed upon his lordship with an excessive manner. Apparently they were all to be dead sportsmen together. And then Mrs. Effie called me aside.

"You can do me a favour," she began. "About the wedding breakfast and reception. Dear Kate's place is so small. It wouldn't do. There will be a crush, of course. I've had the loveliest idea for it—our own house. You know