“Oh, what a shame!” protested Theo loudly, as this emblem was borne away. “And I’d specially put it so that it shouldn’t be in his way when he wanted to look at Nancy!”
“‘Comes there much more of it?’” I quoted to myself, but I caught Major Montresor’s eye; he was looking puzzled, almost sorry for me! And that nerved me up to laughing (I flatter myself, quite naturally!) as I murmured to Theo that she was a sentimental little goose!
“Sentimental? A good thing if she is!” took up Theo’s irrepressible uncle. “I like it. In these highly-educated days it’s a good sign! Yes, I like to see the young folks still taking an interest in watching a real Romance, instead of stuffing up their heads with nothing but mixed hockey and hunger-strikes and rubbish of that sort! That never brought a girl a sweetheart yet, did it, Mary? Does it, Nancy? And that’s all a girl’s there for, when you get down to bedrock. I may be a bit behind the times——”
As he was the only person talking at the table, he was considerably “behind” with his dinner. Unheeding, he discoursed on all through the entrée and the saddle of mutton.
“Yes! I may be hackneyed and old-fashioned, but that’s what I feel. What do you say, Major?”
What chance had the Major of saying anything? The whole conversation had been pretty equally divided between the two enfants terribles—the girl of thirteen and the man of sixty.
“Plenty of Romance in our young days! All over for us now! Still, we enjoy seeing the rising generation keep it up! Good luck to ’em. White heather for luck, eh? Yes, yes! Must have one of those little sprigs in my button-hole—memento of a very happy occasion!—Bless my soul, everybody finished except me? I talk too much, ha-ha!—must get on.”
He went on eating very quickly, talking between mouthfuls.
“‘Mock-orange,’ eh? Capital! Hope it won’t be long before we all see real orange-blossom, a wreath of it, round the pretty head of a certain young lady in white! Yes! dash it all, Mary, I must drink that in champagne.”
He took champagne.