"But of course they'll be interested, Mr. Perrigord!" crowed Peggy, with enthusiasm. "Curt, I was just telling Mr. and Mrs. Perrigord about the time in Dubuque when the Knight Oliver got his pants split in the battle with the Moors, and they had to lower the curtain because all the sawdust came out of him, and he had to be sewed up again before uncle would go on with the play. Mr. Perrigord said it was charming, a charming detail. Didn't you, Mr. Perrigord?"
"Quite, Miss Glenn," said the oracle, benevolently (for him), but he looked as if he wished the others would go and let him get back to literature. He showed that heavy sort of politeness which grows acutely uncomfortable in the air. "Quite charming. These little details. But surely I am boring these gentlemen, who can have no conceivable interest… ?"
"But just fancy," continued Peggy, appealing to Morgan. "Hank, you villain, I've lost my bet to you, after all. And now I'll have to stand the cocktails, and it's a terrible shame. Don't you think so, dear Mr. Perrigord?"
Warren did not like this at all.
"Bet?" he said. "What bet? Who made a bet?"
Somebody kicked him in the shins. "Because," the girl went on, "after all my tam-o'-shanter didn't blow in the porthole of Mr. Perrigord's cabin last night. It's beastly luck, because now I've probably lost it; but it didn't, and there's that. Just before Mr. Perrigord began talking so wonderfully" — here she raised earnest, awed, soft eyes for a moment and kept them fixed on Perrigord's countenance.
He cleared his throat. A sort of paralytic leer passed over his face. Warren saw it. So did Mrs. Perrigord—"just before Mr. Perrigord began talking so wonderfully, he told me he'd found nothing in the cabin at all, and I'm afraid now I must have lost that nice tam of mine."
"No deu-oubt," said Mrs. Perrigord, giving Peggy a nasty look through her monocle. "It was quayte dark on deck, wasn't it, my de-ah?"
"Quayte. And, I say, these men do take such advantage of us, don't they, Mrs. Perrigord? I mean, I think it's simply awful; but after all what can one do? I mean, it's much better to submit than cause a terrible lot of fuss and bother, isn't it?"
"Well, re-aolly!" said Mrs. Perrigord, stiffening. "I confess I scarcely kneow. To — to one at a time, perhaps. But — ah — reaolly, my deah, since I am olmost certain I heard at least six intoxicated men carousing out the-ah, I confess I should not have been at oil surprised to find on our floor considerably moah than a tam-o'-shanter. As I observed to the steward at the time—"