"Miss Betty, no one loves me, and I'm going into the garden"—he dropped his voice to a confidential undertone—"to eat worms."
The girl giggled weakly. "Please don't make me laugh any more! Won't you stay here and have an ice instead? I'm sure it would be much better for you."
"Would it, d'you think? I've been watching the sailors drinking beer. Have you ever seen a sailor drink beer, Miss Betty? It's a grim sight."
She shook her head, and there was both laughter and reproach in the young eyes considering him over the bouquet. "You forsook me—and a nice Midshipman had pity on my loneliness and brought me an ice."
The Indiarubber Man eyed her sorrowfully. "I turn my back for a moment to watch sailors drink beer—I am a man of few recreations—and return to find you sighing over the memory of another and making shocking bad puns. Really, Miss Betty—Ah! Now I can understand...."
A small and pink-faced Midshipman approached with two brimming glasses of champagne. The Indiarubber Man faded discreetly away, leaving his charge and her new-found knight pledging each other with sparkling eyes.
The Bride touched her husband's sleeve in a lull in the handshaking and congratulations. "Isn't it rather nice to see people enjoying themselves! Don't you feel as if you wanted everybody to be as happy as we?—Look at Betty and that boy.... Champagne, if you please! How ill the child will be; and she's got to go back to school to-morrow...."
Her husband laughed softly. "Pretty little witch.... Torps has taken it away from her and given her some lemonade instead. Where's Mother?—Oh, I see: hobnobbing with the Colonel over a cup of tea. What a crush! Dear, can't we escape soon....?"
"Very soon now—poor boy, are you very hot in those things?"
"Not very. The worst part's coming—the rice and slippers and good-byes. Are you very tired, darling...?"