She tendered the blue paper back with an indifferent gesture.
“Have you despatched Pompey, Lydia?”
Lord Kilcroney put his hands behind him.
“Nay! nay!” cried he, with the uneasy boisterousness of one who would force the issue as a joke. “’Tis your business, me darling.”
“I thought you wanted it paid, my Lord?”
“And maybe,” cried he, laughing yet more violently, “you think I can pay it?”
He began pulling his pockets out.
“Sure that would be the joke entirely! I’m cleaned through. There ain’t a single chinker left in my purse, Kitty, and it’s the lovely red silk one you made me yourself last Christmas. Troth! I am this moment what they say Nature abhors——”
“And what’s that, Sir?”
“A vacuum, my love,” quoth my Lord, with a great guffaw.