Thus adjured, he roused himself, and, with the aid of champagne, which he drank as if it were water, became brilliant once more; indeed, he grew rather too noisy for the young lady who had bantered him, and she turned her attentions to the bishop after all.
Trafford’s health was drunk about fifty times, and he sat patiently smiling and waiting. He had gone through it all extremely well, and had earned the encomiums of the men, who declared that he had played the part like a hero.
“Never broke down or cried once!” said Ffoulkes, with an enthusiasm and admiration born of champagne, and the relief of having got through the speech which had haunted him for weeks past and made his life a burden. “Never saw anything like it. Give you my word that I should have fainted at the very least. Awful ceremony! Enough to keep any thinking man single for the whole of his life. I say, old chap, hadn’t we better be getting our togs together? Won’t do to keep the bride waiting, you know; bad example; though, by gad! they don’t want any example in that business, as a rule.”
Trafford went into the hall for his light overcoat.
“I had a stick somewhere,” he said. “Where did I put it? Oh, I remember, I left it in the anteroom last night.”
“I’ll get it,” said Ffoulkes. “Got to wait on you hand and foot to-day, you know.”
“You wouldn’t find it. Go back into the dining-room—but don’t have any more champagne,” said Trafford, and he laughed.
Lord Ffoulkes nodded and grinned, and Trafford went into the anteroom. The stick was standing where he had left it, and he took it up and was leaving the room when Ada entered.
She closed the door, and stood looking at him, her face white, her lips tightly compressed.
“I—I have been watching,” she said, with a catch in her breath. “I knew—felt—that you would want to say ‘Good-bye.’”