Page:Leon Wilson - Ruggles of Red Gap.djvu/366

352 "Then the breakfast and reception," suggested Mrs. Effie with a meaning glance at me before she turned to the lady. "Of course, dearest, your own tiny nest would never hold your host of friends"

"I've never noticed," said the other quickly. "It's always seemed big enough," she added in pensive tonew and with downcast eyes.

"Oh, not large enough by half," put in Belknap-Jackson. "Most charming little home-nook but worlds too small for all your well-wishers." With a glance at me he narrowed his eyes in friendly calculation. "I'm somewhat puzzled myself Suppose we see what the capable Ruggles has to suggest."

"Let Ruggles suggest something by all means!" cried Mrs. Effie.

I mean to say, they both quite thought they knew what I would suggest, but it was nothing of the sort. The situation had entirely changed. Quite another sort of thing it was. Quickly I resolved to fling them both aside. I, too, would be a dead sportsman.

"I was about to suggest," I remarked, "that my place here is the only one at all suitable for the breakfast and reception. I can promise that the affair will go off smartly."

The two had looked up with such radiant expectation at my opening words and were so plainly in a state at my conclusion that I dare say the future Countess of Brinstead at once knew what. She flashed them a look, then eyed me with quick understanding.

"Great!" she exclaimed in a hearty American manner. "Then that's settled," she continued briskly, as both Belknap-Jackson and Mrs. Effie would have interposed.