"I say, where's poor old Beverley?" Arthur asked.
"Behind, I think—talking it over with Etheringham. Well, let 'em talk!" He shaped his lips for a whistle, but thought better of it. "We'll have another flutter some day, Mr. Sarradet!" he remarked with an air of genial encouragement.
"Flutter!" The old man was choking with indignation. "If I ever——!"
"Well, we'd best be getting home," Sidney interposed, with an authority which made the suggestion an order. "Come along, Marie."
"Bring Pops, Raymond," Marie directed. She gave her free hand to Arthur, raising mournful eyes to his. "What a terrible experience!" she murmured.
"He calls it a flutter!"—A fragment of old Sarradet's indignation was blown back from the pavement into the lobby.
"Not sports!" Joe mused regretfully. "Not what I call sports, Arthur! I'm really rather sorry we didn't manage to rope old Sidney in too. Looking so dashed wise, wasn't he? Come along, let's find Claud—and I want to see Ayesha."
"I suppose we shall have to settle what's to be done about it, shan't we?"
"We'll hear what Langley thinks."
They found a little party in Mr. Etheringham's room—that gentleman himself, standing with his back to the fireplace, smoking a cigar; Willie Spring, an exhausted volcano, lying back in a chair, staring at the ceiling; Miss Ayesha Layard on the sofa, smiling demurely; and the author seated at the table with the script of the play in front of him; he was turning over the leaves quickly and with an appearance of eager industry.