He is his father all over again, Mrs. Austen cheerfully reflected and absently asked: "How is he?"
"Lennox? I haven't an idea."
"I mean your father."
"In a great hurry, thank you. The war has gone to his head."
"At his age? Surely——"
"He wants me to go," said Paliser, who had no intention of it whatever and whom subsequent events completely exempted. "He is in a hurry for me to enlist and in a greater hurry to have me marry."
Austerely, this pleasant woman grabbed it. "It is your duty!"
That was too much for Paliser, who, knowing as well as she did what she was driving at, wanted to laugh. Like the yawn, he suppressed it.
The priestess's austerity faded. A very fair mimic of exaltation replaced it. "Whoever she is, how proud she will be! A war-bride!"
But Paliser, who had his fill, was rising and, abandoning histrionics, she resumed: "The 24th at eight; don't forget!" Then as he passed from the portal, the priestess lifted her hands. "What a fish! Fast or loose, what a fish!"