"Will, did he really? How like him!"
"Yes. Sir Kersley told me. But he added that it is a well-known fact that brides never faint, so Jim's precautions were quite unnecessary. He also said—But perhaps it's hardly fair to tell you that!"
"What?" said Daisy eagerly. "Of course tell me! Tell me at once, Will!"
Will smiled again. "Well, if I must! He told me that Max himself was anything but as serene as he looked and had been dosing with bromide to steady his nerves."
Daisy broke into a laugh. "No, you certainly shouldn't have told me that! How mean of Sir Kersley! Still, it's nice to know that Max is a little human now and then. I shall like him better now. And so I don't mind telling you something in return. I've been making the most discreet enquiries, and I haven't unearthed the vaguest rumour of that tale Major Hunt-Goring told me. I believe it was all his own invention after all."
"Very likely," said Will. "Opium-smokers often get delusions."
Daisy caught and kissed her husband's hand. "How very charitable of you, Will! You're a perpetual antidote to my poison. Did you observe Nick during the ceremony? He was grinning like a Hindu idol—just as if he'd done it all."
"He has his finger in most pies," observed Will. "I daresay it wasn't altogether absent from this one. Muriel looked supremely proud of her C.S.I."
"And she has reason to be," declared Daisy warmly. "He is quite a king in his own line. I'm so glad he got the Star."
"It's time he got something of the sort certainly," said Will. "I suppose he'll be good now for another six years. Then he'll send the boy to school and inveigle her back to the East."