“...”
“Perhaps you are keeping your hand in!”
“...”
“I can’t listen to any more—I’m too sleepy. Good-bye!—Ring off, please!”
At breakfast she said, “Ally, we lost a joke by not going to the Gilderoys. The Denver girl and Mr. Gurney went into the garden to find a ping-pong ball, and wandered on to the next door stoep by mistake (?), and didn’t turn up till midnight. Can’t you fancy Captain Gilderoy’s state of mind when he had to go out and look for them with a lantern?”
“With Mrs. Gilderoy making her brisk little comments in the background! She has a dangerous tongue, that woman. Won’t she give a fine version of the tale all round Maitso! Who told you, Chum?”
“Brissy—on the ’phone. He said a lot of pretty things to me too. That’s what you get by leaving your wife to attend to the thing! I couldn’t really hear,” she added candidly, “but I could gather that he simpered, so I laughed too. It’s generally safe to laugh!”
“I shall have to cane Brissy one of these days!” said Alaric, stretching out a shapely hand for the guava jelly. He had beautiful hands, and Chum noted them for the hundredth time as he did it. She always thought that they would have better suited a doctor than a soldier. “Are we going to church, Chum?” he said.
“Yes, I promised the Churtons yesterday. They want us to lunch there. We can ride up after service, can’t we?”
“If you like. I suppose as it is Sunday there will be no Bridge—awful bore, isn’t it?”