"You're a great enthusiast, Mrs. Dennison," smiled Detchmore. "You ought to go out, you know. Can't you persuade your husband to lend you to the expedition?"
Ruston could have killed the man for his malapropos jesting. Maggie Dennison seemed unable to answer it. Semingham broke in lightly,
"It would be a fine chance for proving the quality—and the equality—of women," said he. "I always told Mrs. Dennison that she ought to be Queen of Omofaga."
"And I hope," said Detchmore, with a significant smile, "that there'll soon be a railway to take you there."
Even at that moment, the light of triumph came suddenly gleaming into Ruston's eyes. He looked at Detchmore, who laughed and nodded.
"I think so. I think I shall be able to manage it," he said.
"That's an end to all our troubles," said Semingham. "Come, we'll drink to it."
He signed to a waiter, who brought champagne. Lord Detchmore gallantly pressed a glass on Mrs. Dennison. She shook her head, but took it.
"Long life to Omofaga, and death to its enemies!" cried Semingham in burlesque heroics, and, with a laugh—that was, as his laughs so often were, as much at himself as at the rest of the world—he made a mock obeisance to Willie Ruston, adding, "Moriamur pro rege nostro!" and draining the glass.
Maggie Dennison's eyes sparkled. Behind the mockery in Semingham's jest, behind the only half make-believe homage which Detchmore's humorous glance at Ruston showed, she saw the reality of deference, the acknowledgment of power in the man she loved. For a brief moment she tasted the troubled joy which she had paid so high to win. For a moment her eyes rested on Willie Ruston as a woman's eyes rest on a man who is the world's as well as hers, but also hers as he is not the world's. She sipped the champagne, echoing in her low rich voice, so that the men but just caught the words, "Moriamur pro rege nostro" and gave the glass into Ruston's hand.