“By no means,” she rejoined. “I led a very pinched, narrow sort of life for years, and now I’m having my little fling. Some day perhaps I may settle down. After my forty-fifth birthday has passed I shall marry the first man that asks me. There! You are both witnesses. Miss Lingard, you haven’t spoken a word. A penny for your thoughts?”
“I have been thinking that we are all related,” I answered. “Captain Falkland pretends that the Falklands and the Lingards are cousins.”
“Pretends!” he expostulated, “I do like that! Allow me to refer you to the family pedigree.”
“If Captain Falkland and I are cousins and you are his cousin, and Mrs. Wolfe is your cousin—we must belong to the same tribe!”
“Very well, Miss Lingard,” said Sally, “in future I shall call you by your Christian name, and when I die you must promise to go into second mourning. Ah, here comes my ice at last! Strawberry, I hope. And now you, my two nice new cousins, may pass on”; and without further discussion we took her at her word.
Captain Falkland had put himself down on my card for the supper dance, and I was just about to go in to supper with Roger Arkwright when he appeared, and stood before me and said:
“May I have the honour of taking you in?”
“I have promised Mr. Arkwright.”
“But you are engaged to me for the supper dance. You must have supper before the dance—otherwise how is it a supper dance?”
“That is a funny argument,” exclaimed Roger, and he glanced at Falkland and laughed.