'Why, Ted, that's like fishing for an invitation!'
'Nothing of the sort. Who ever heard of a bridegroom asking to be invited to—— Now, Stella, don't move; sit just as you are. And what are these roses in your hair and bosom?'
'Scarlet fairy roses. Aren't they too dear and sweet? Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs still has heaps of them, though they were nearly over with us when I left home.'
'Tell me about Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs before Larry comes back. I won't let the cat out of the bag on you this time!'
Stella was sitting on her favourite chair, near the fire. The flames leaped rosily, and cast rosy reflections on her face—stealing to it on each side of the Japanese screen, with its flock of wide-winged storks hovering above their slender bamboos. Ritchie had planted himself straight in front of her, sitting horseback fashion on a chair, his hands, which were crossed on the back of it, supporting his chin.
At this request Stella began to laugh, and her eyes sparkled with amusement. It was the expression that her companion best loved to see her wear. When she looked like that he always understood what she said.
'Oh, the salon, Ted; it was really too funny. You must know that after dinner we assembled in what Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs calls her boudoir, but it is as large as any ordinary drawing-room. It is hung with panels of peach-coloured satin, very beautifully embroidered—some with Graces and Cupids tumbling over wreaths of roses. But the design I liked best was a great spray of double white cherry-blossoms, with a pair of sweet little gray love-birds billing in the midst——'
'Yes, they're jolly little animals. I wish some people would take a little more after them.'
'Now, if you interrupt I must remember bow late it is. Perhaps I ought to tell you that this work was done by a Russian countess that Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs met abroad. She got into trouble with her husband, or the Government, or something. So one night, instead of returning home from a ball, she ran away to the Riviera, where she designed and worked lovely things for people who have two hundred thousand sheep in the woods of Australia. When you come to think of it, there is something that fascinates the mind in the idea of eloping with a crewel-needle from the reach of the police, or an objectionable husband.'
'Nonsense, Stella; no woman worth her salt runs away from her husband like that,' answered Ted promptly. He may have had reasons of his own for entertaining strict views on this point. 'Besides, if you knew all, you may depend it was not with a crewel-needle she eloped.'