"Oh, I say!" exclaimed the duke, swallowing hurriedly. "I say, Kneedrock! What you mean is that she's uncommonly amusing. That's so, and that's all you mean. Only you put it a bit strongly. But that's what you mean."
Nibbetts shrugged his broad, heavy shoulders.
"Have it your own way," he grumbled. "I know what I mean, and I know what I know. You just watch her eyes get narrow, and then you wait a month. They narrow when a new man appears; and in a month she's licking his blood from her paws!"
"Oh, how very rude you are!" Lady Bellingdown chided. "Really, you know, I won't have it. You sha'n't say another word. No, I won't have it!"
Carleigh looked down at his tea. A queer flush had succeeded the pallor—a flush of still livelier interest to which Kneedrock's remarks had stung him.
He wondered what a reincarnated tigress would be like. A pleasant thrill charged through him for the first time in quite five weeks.
And just then the door at the end of the hall opened and Nina Darling trod lightly in. She had been walking and still had on her hat—a hat of yellow felt with cocks' plumes sifting backward.
In her hand she carried a man's walking-stick, and by her side stalked a great black staghound.
Sir Caryll took her all in instantly. And remembering the reference to half-mourning, wondered whether it was expressed in the hound. Certainly there was no other sign, for her frock was a pale tan frieze and her boots were but a shade darker.
"I am very late," she cried, and her clear voice rang across them like a bell. "But I am forgivable. I found the quaintest little church, and I have been praying. Yes, only fancy! I've been down on my knees begging not to do wrong, because—" she looked at them all and laughed—"because I feel just like doing wrong and I don't want to."