Dunstan and Minga helpfully nodded—"afterward" they prompted!
"That is, when Sard was three days old, Mrs. Bogart suddenly said, that is, I have always understood that she said it suddenly—my brother would know accurately—she said, 'She's to be called Sardonyx'—'Sardonyx' like that."
"Really," drawled Minga.
"But Sardonyx was—er—quite masculine, as you see," continued Miss Aurelia with zest; the narrator turned her face somewhat eagerly and the pursy mouth, too full of teeth, continued: "This feminization of it was Mrs. Bogart's own—quite original, we thought. She made it Sardonice, very clever, everyone said—there was no opposition. I remember," added Miss Aurelia, "that at that time, for certain reasons, they were anxious not to have the—er—brain—too active—and we—er—tried in every way to distract her thought—but that is how Sard got her name 'Sardonice'—most unusual," concluded Miss Aurelia a trifle apologetically.
"Why, she could have been named Jezebel, under the circumstances," remarked Dunstan. "But—er—as it is—we—er—call her 'Sardine' for short." The lad, lazily smoking, rolled one eye 'round on Minga.
"Dunstan——" reproved Miss Aurelia.
"Really?" Minga drawled the easy little word again, then with some recollection of the archaic thing called "manners," "Thanks ever so much, Miss Aurelia—I'm sure it was awfully clever of Mrs. Bogart; I always wondered how Sard got her name. Wouldn't it be fun to have a lot of girls with names like that—Emerald, Diamond, Sapphire, Jade—I could have been the Jade," remarked Minga with a demure chuckle.
"You've got your wish," observed Dunstan with emphasis. "A little red Jade, what?" He finished his cigarette, lingeringly pinned down the butt, extinguished it, then rose, stretching. "Well," with a look of sweet seriousness, "I'm off to have a whack at those old conditions."
"You mean you're off to bed because you're bored," said Minga scornfully. "You mean you're going to work out poker hands."
"Good-night, Polly Prunella," the lad bent over and kissed the top fluff of curls. The girl reached out a punishing hand and he drew back, chuckling. "You used to let me last year," he explained.