“Ah no, Theodore,” said Mrs. Viveash, “you’re not going to catch a train. You’re going to come and lunch with me. Providence has decreed it. You can’t say no to Providence.”
“I must,” Gumbril shook his head. “I’ve said yes to somebody else.”
“To whom?”
“Ah!” said Gumbril, with a coy and saucy mysteriousness.
“And where are you going in your famous train?”
“Ah again,” Gumbril answered.
“How intolerably tiresome and silly you are!” Mrs. Viveash declared. “One would think you were a sixteen-year-old schoolboy going out for his first assignation with a shop girl. At your age, Gumbril!” She shook her head, smiled agonizingly and with contempt. “Who is she? What sordid pick-up?”
“Not sordid in the least,” protested Gumbril.
“But decidedly a pick-up. Eh?” A banana-skin was lying, like a bedraggled starfish, in the gutter, just in front of where they were standing. Mrs. Viveash stepped forward and with the point of her parasol lifted it carefully up and offered it to her companion.
“Merci,” Gumbril bowed.