"Don't you want to find your husband?" he exclaimed.
"Of course I do; but it has been a sort of breathing-space before settling down to the seriousness of married life, and that elephant episode was funny. I think it was worth two days of any husband; don't you?"
"I don't know," returned the Consul, somewhat ruefully. "I'd just as lief that Scarsdale had had the beast."
"Oh, I wouldn't!" she cried. "He would have spoiled all the fun. He'd have done some stupid, rational thing. Donated it to the 'Zoo' in London, I should think; wasted the elephant, in fact. It took the spirit of American humour to play your colossal, practical joke. I wonder if it has arrived at the Court yet. I can fancy it sticking its head, trunk and all, through the great window in Lady Melton's dining-room."
"She called me a consular person," remarked that official stiffly.
"Hence the elephant," laughed his fair companion. "Cause and effect. But, joking apart, there is a pitiful side to our adventure. When I think of those two matter-of-fact, serious British things, your better half and my—my husband, and of what a miserable time they have been having, unrelieved by any spark of humour, it almost makes me cry."
"Hold on!" cried Allingford, "You are just as bad as your great-aunt. She calls me a consular person, and you call my wife a British thing! I wish I had another elephant."
"I beg your pardon, I do really," she replied. "I classed my husband in the same category. But don't you agree with me that it's sad? I'm sure your poor wife has cried her eyes out; and as for my husband, I doubt if he's eaten anything, and I'm certain he's worn his most unbecoming clothes."
"You are wrong there," interrupted Allingford; "he packed all the worst specimens, and I rescued them at Salisbury. I tried them on yesterday, and there wasn't a suit I'd have had the face to wear in public."
"There, run along and turn the station upside down; you've talked enough," she said, laughing, and drove him playfully out of the room.