Jack who had come in a quarter of an hour before, and had not yet seen Edith, came out of the drawing-room window at this moment. He sat down on the step, and went off into helpless laughter....
Edith appeared at dinner simultaneously with the broiled trout. She had a garish order pinned rather crookedly on to her dress.
"Darling, what's that swank?" asked Dodo instantly.
"Bavarian Order of Music and Chivalry," she said. "The King gave it me at Munich. It has never been given to a woman before. There's a troubadour one side, and Richard Wagner on the other."
"I don't believe he would have been so chivalrous if he had seen you as Jack did just before dinner. Jack, would your chivalry have triumphed? Your tennis-shoes, my tea-gown, and Edith in the middle."
"What! My tennis-shoes?" asked Jack.
"Dodo, you should have broken it to him," said Edith with deep reproach.
"I didn't dare to. It might have made him stop laughing, and suppressed laughter is as dangerous as suppressed measles when you get on in life. There's another thing about your Germans. I thought of it while I was dressing. They only laugh at German jokes."
"There is one in Faust," said Jack with an air of scrupulous fairness. "At least there is believed to be: commentators differ. But when Faust is given in Germany, the whole theatre rocks with laughter at the proper point."