“What, Mossy Avery! Not really? Disguised as a slipper, I suppose. Rum bird. He got awfully keen on a little girl at the Orient and tootled her all over town for a while, but I haven’t seen him for months. I used to know him rather well at the ‘Varsity: he was one of the esthetic push. I say, what’s become of Lily?”
“Married to a croupier? Not, really. By Jove! what a time I had over her with Michael Fane’s people. His sister, an awfully good sort, put me through a fearful catechism.”
“His sister?” repeated Sylvia.
“You know what Michael’s doing now? Greatest scream on earth. He’s a monk. Some special kind of a monk that sounds like omelette, but isn’t. Nothing to be done about it. I buzzed down to see him last year, and he was awfully fed up. I asked him if he couldn’t stop monking for a bit and come out for a spin on my new forty-five Shooting Star. He wasn’t in uniform, so there’s no reason why he shouldn’t have come.”
“He’s in England, now, then?” Sylvia asked.
“No, he got fed up with everybody buzzing down to see what he looked like as a monk, and he’s gone off to Chartreuse or Benedictine or somewhere—I know it’s the name of a liqueur—somewhere abroad. I wanted him to become a partner in our business, and promised we’d put a jolly little runabout on the market called The Jovial Monk, but he wouldn’t. Look here, we’d better join the others. Dolly’s got her eye on me. I say,” he chuckled, in a whisper, “I suppose you know she’s a connection of mine?”
“Yes, by carriage.”
Lonsdale asked what she meant, and Sylvia told him the origin of Dorothy’s name.
“Oh, I say, that’s topping. What’s her real name?”
“No, no,” Sylvia said. “I’ve been sufficiently spiteful.”