Indeed, when Mr. Sellwood joined the ladies, who happened to be in the conservatory, with savage words upon his lips, his wife stuck up for the maligned Colonist. That, however, was partly from the instinct of conjugal opposition, and partly because Lady Caroline was herself afraid of "this fellow Dalrymple," as her husband could call him fluently enough behind his back. The other men were not long in joining the indignant Minister. They had finished their cigarettes, but Jack had donned his gorgeous smoking-cap by special request of Lady Caroline, who beamed upon him and it from her chair.
"Hallo! have you come in for that thing?" exclaimed Mr. Sellwood, who was in the mood to hail with delight any target for hostile criticism. "I always thought you intended it for Claude, my dear Caroline?"
"It turned out to be a little too small for Claude," replied her Ladyship sweetly.
"Claude, you've had an escape," said the Home Secretary. "Jack, my boy, you have my sympathy."
"I don't require it, thank you, sir," laughed the Duke. "I'm proud of myself, I tell you! This'd knock 'em up at Jumping Sandhills, wouldn't it, Mr. Dalrymple?"
"It would indeed: so the cap goes with the coronet, does it?" added the squatter, but with such good-humour that it was impossible to take open umbrage at his words. "I wonder how it would fit me?" And he lifted the thing off Jack's head by the golden tassel, and dropped it upon his own.
"Too small again," said Jack: indeed the purple monstrosity sat upon the massive hairless head like a thimble on a billiard-ball.
"And it doesn't suit you a bit," added Olivia, who was once more in a simmer of indignation with her lover's exasperating friend.
"No more would the coronet," replied Dalrymple, replacing the smoking-cap on its owner's head. "By the way, Jack, where do you keep your coronet?"
"Where do I keep my coronet?" asked the Duke of his major-domo. "I've never set eyes on it."