"It can't possibly be that you are talking about Jumbo?" she asked.
"That I believe was the nickname given him at one time," said Lord Cookham, "in allusion to the——"
Dodo put both her elbows on the table, and went off into peals of inexplicable laughter; she rocked backwards and forwards in her chair, and the tears streamed from her eyes. For a long time she was perfectly incapable of speech, for at every effort to control her mouth into the shape necessary for articulate utterance, it broke away again.
"Oh, oh, I must stop laughing!" she gasped. "Oh, it hurts.... My ribs ache; it's agony! What am I to do? But Jumbo! All this fuss about Jumbo! Jumbo was one of my oldest friends. How could I guess that he had become the Maha-ha-ha-rajah of Bareilly? Oh, Lord Cookham, I apologise for all I've said, and for all I've laughed. It's too silly for anything! But why didn't you say it was Jumbo at once, instead of being so pomp—no, I don't mean that. I don't know what I mean."
Dodo collected herself, wiped her eyes, drank a little tea, choked in the middle and eventually pulled herself together.
"Jumbo!" she said faintly. "Is it possible that you never knew that Jumbo used to be absolutely at my feet! I suppose that belonged to the time when he was frivolous, and you lost sight of him. My dear, he used to send me large pearls, which I was obliged to send back to him, and then he sent them again. What they cost in registered parcel post baffles conjecture. What's his address? I must write to him at once. He would think it too odd for words if I gave a dance and didn't ask him. I wonder he has not been to see me already. When did he get to London?"
"Last night only," said Lord Cookham. "He's staying at——"
At that moment the telephone bell rang.
"I believe in miracles," said Dodo rushing to it.