"Really! Well, I am afraid I do not share his opinion," declared the listener with a shrug of her round shoulders.
"You have been in the country, of course?"
"No; but I have read about it, which amounts to almost the same thing. Have you seen a book called 'Thrills from the Hills, or The Curse of the Khitmagar'?"
"Yes, as it happens, I have! A fellow on board ship had it, and I looked into it."
"Tell me, how did it strike you?" she demanded, and the lady's key was pitched in the imperative mood.
"As absolutely the greatest drivel and rot I ever read—and that is saying a good deal! It is no more like India than it's like Homburg! I should say that the author took her facts from fiction, her local colour from Earl's Court, and her grammar from her cook!"
There was an unusually spacious pause. Captain Haig glanced furtively at his companion, and noticed that her face had become alarmingly red. Presently she remarked in a repressed, but throaty voice:
"It is a misfortune that the book fails to meet with your approval. As it happens it was written by my sister," and she turned her head away and gave him a view of nearly the whole of her shoulders.
"Well, what was said was said!" reflected her neighbour, apologies were useless. He tossed off a glass of champagne and settled himself to brazen out the situation until a welcome signal should give him his release.
For a considerable time the culprit was compelled to subsist on disjointed scraps of the adjoining conversations. Among the crumbs he gathered were these: "Fancy going 'no trumps' on such a hand! Wasn't it sickening?"