"You'd like to wrap me up in cotton-wool and seal me in a safe," laughed
Nick.
"No; but, Nick, you are so reckless," she said, with loving eyes upon him. "It would be madness, wouldn't it, Max?"
Max's shrewd look rested for a moment on his host. "Little gods sometimes accomplish what mere mortals would never dream of attempting," he said. "How soon do you expect to be Viceroy, Nick?"
"Oh, not for a year or two," said Nick. "I haven't talked it over with my wife yet. There's no knowing. She may object. Wives are sometimes hard to please, you know." He flung a humorous glance at Max, and turned to leave them. "You will excuse me, I am sure, with the utmost pleasure. I am going to play spelicans with Kobad Shikan."
He was gone, and Olga turned to Max, smiling somewhat uneasily. "I wish he wouldn't," she said.
"What? Play spelicans? I should think he might prove as great an adept at that as walking the tight rope," said Max. "Ah, here comes your friend Mrs. Musgrave! She went home and told her husband this morning that I was the most objectionable young man she had ever met."
Olga's eyes widened with indignation. "Max, I'm sure she didn't, and if she did it was entirely your own fault. I believe you wanted her to think so."
"Some people have an antipathy to red hair," observed Max. "You had yourself at one time, I believe. Hullo! Is that our gallant Noel in polo-kit? What a magnificent spectacle!"
It was Noel following Daisy, whose rickshaw he had just spied, and bearing the proud Peggy on his shoulder.
He came straight to Olga, smiling with supreme ease, lowered Peggy from her perch, and dropped into the vacant seat beside her. Daisy passed on with a smile to join the Bradlaws. Peggy remained, glued to her hero's side.