Suspiciously my sister regarded her husband.
"Which did you say?" she demanded.
"'Mercredi.'"
"I don't believe a word of it," cried Daphne. "You said 'Mardi.'
You know you did."
Here a seemingly interminable freight-train started to lumber across our path….
As the rumble began to die—
"I think," said I, "he must have got 'Wednesday' through. Otherwise
Evelyn would have rung up last night."
Berry drew a case from his pocket and offered me a cigar. Then he turned to my sister and protruded his tongue….
We had known Evelyn Fairie for years. It was natural that we should wish to know Evelyn Swetecote. That wedlock could have diminished her charm was not to be thought of. But we were forgivably curious to see her in the married state and to make the acquaintance of the man whom she had chosen out of so many suitors. Little knowing that we were at Pau, Evelyn had written to us from Biarritz. In due season her letter had arrived, coming by way of Hampshire. An answer in the shape of a general invitation to lunch had brought not so much a refusal as a definite counter-proposal that we should suggest a day and come to Biarritz. In reply, the services of the telephone had been requisitioned, and, if my brother-in-law was to be believed, Mrs. Swetecote had been advised to expect us on Wednesday.
In any event, expected or unexpected, here were we, all six, upon the road—my wife and cousins in one car, and Daphne, Berry, and I within the other.