“Ada.”
The jolly-eyed girl gulped, giggled, started forward, missed Ann’s hand, tried again, clutched it anyhow and withdrew.
“Mr. Barnham.”
The æsthete thrust forward, stumbled, bowed over Ann’s fingers and turned confusedly away.
“Mr. Alcock.”
Mr. Alcock delighted in showing how things should be done. Here was a brilliant opportunity of at once asserting his superiority, astonishing Ann, who would be thankful to find such unexpected savoir-faire, and dispelling any skulking idea that to carry off such an encounter was beyond his powers. He stepped forward briskly.
“Pleased to meet you, indeed,” he said warmly. “ ’Ow’s Piccadilly?”
It was a difficult question to answer.
Before Ann had found a reply, there was the appalling explosion with which laughter which has been denied its usual channel forces the narrows of the nose. The strain had been too great. Nature had asserted herself. Ada had broken down.
Before her relatives’ horrified gaze, she abandoned herself to succeeding paroxysms of mirth, to which, to his undying shame, Mr. Barnham began sniggeringly to subscribe.