“No!” said Chum, firmly; “I never remember people’s birthdays on principle. Sooner or later it is bound to degenerate into rudeness.”
“That reminds me that there is a birthday dinner party threatening us next week, anyhow. Old Arthur White met me in the club and told me he was sixty next Thursday. They have a feed on at the Harrac. Are you going?”
“Yes, I believe so. Mr. Halton tells me that Harrac is one of the few houses where they know how to cook flying-fish, and you can trust to the Bridge being sound.”
“‘Bridge’ is not my game, though I play it,” said the Major, with unconscious self-revelation. “I like ‘Poker’—one is on one’s own there. I prefer to trust to myself.”
Chum looked at his line of chin and forehead, and smiled. For a minute she wondered what it would be like to have a husband who preferred to trust to himself. Ally so infinitely preferred to leave the final decision to her! It sounded rather restful, and she glanced round half curiously at the man with whom she had linked her own fate—and power of making up her mind—to find him seriously arguing with Captain Gilderoy that the Saint Lucia twopence halfpenny crown C. C. would rise in the market now that Queen’s heads were becoming scarce. It seemed he could really concentrate his thoughts and energies on a hobby, anyway. She caught the beautiful curve of his earnest face with simple artistic pleasure, and then found Mrs. Churton waiting to make a move from the table.
“Have you finished your smoke, Chum?” she said carelessly as she rose. “Come into my room and freshen up. The men are good for more whiskey yet.”
“I hope not!” said Chum, with a half-resigned, half-protesting glance at Ally, which slid harmlessly over his bent head and was lost among the shades of the Canadian two-cent map stamp.
“Didn’t I hear you talking about Denvers?” said Mrs. Gilderoy, as the three women entered Mrs. Churton’s room and drifted by mutual attraction towards the looking-glass. “You heard how Trixie Denver behaved at our house the other night?”
“Yes. Brissy—Captain Nugent—told me this morning through the telephone.” She thought of Ally’s prophecy, that Mrs. Gilderoy would make a story out of the incident, and waited with a smile somewhere hidden in her eyes.
“Oh, my dear, we had an awful time! My good man took a lantern and went to find them at last, for they had been out there simply hours! I told him he had better be careful how he turned it on—it was one of those electric things, you know. But he flashed it straight into the dark corners, and discovered them, to the mutual embarrassment of all three!”