"To be sure," he said. "Mrs. Mackintosh spoke of you as that—er—quadruped. But what does it mean?"
"You want to know a great deal too much for a man of your age. It's an animal that is more than once mentioned in Scripture, and that ought to be sufficient for your purposes. So we'll have it understood that his Lordship's Leopard is quite at his Lordship's service, if his Lordship doesn't mind."
"Mind!" he cried ecstatically, eyeing the other side of the table. But Miss Violet intended to have the board between them.
"Take another glass of champagne, and keep quiet," she said sternly. "We're talking about your estimable but impossible sister. My dear Joe, you'll never have any sport till you've got rid of her."
"But how shall I get rid of her?" he asked despondently. Even champagne was not proof against the depression induced by such an appalling thought.
"Oh, send her to a course of mud-baths or a water-cure!"
"I might try it—if—if you'd help me—if you'd take her place at the palace. I mean—"
"Josephus!" she called, in such an exact imitation of his sister's tone that it made him sit right up. "Josephus! don't say another word! I know what you mean—and you're an old dear—and I'm not going to let you make a fool of yourself. You're aged enough to be my father, and if your son had had his way you would have been my father-in-law. I want to have a good time, and I want you to have a good time; but that isn't the proper manner in which to set about it. No, you send the old lady packing, for the good of her health, and Mrs. Mackintosh and I'll help you and Cecil entertain, and we'll have a dance, and a marquee, and lots of punch. I dare say you've never been to a dance in your life," she rattled on, not giving him a chance to blunder out excuses.
"I'm not such an old fogey as you think me," he began. "But I want to say—er—Miss—Leopard—"
"Oh, no, you don't," she interrupted. "You want to forget what you've said, and so do I. We must talk about something else. What were you saying about a dance?"