But there was a yet more painful ordeal in store for her that night in the billiard-room, had she but known it. The morrow's bridegroom, Fred Danvers, having failed to execute an easy shot, some one accused him of possessing shaky nerves.
"You'll never get through to-morrow if you can't do an easy thing like that," was the laughing remark.
Tots looked up.
"Oh, rot! The bridegroom has no business to suffer with the jumps. That's the best man's privilege. He does all the work, and has all the responsibility. Why, I'm shakin' in my shoes whenever I think of to-morrow, but if it were my own weddin' I shouldn't turn a hair."
Young Danvers guffawed at this.
"Bet you'll turn the colour of this table when the time comes, if it ever does come, which I doubt!"
"Why?" questioned Tots.
Danvers laughed again, enjoying the joke. Tots was always more or less of a butt to his friends.
"In the first place, you'd never have the courage or the energy to propose. In the second, no girl would ever take you seriously. In the third—"
He broke off, struck silent by a wholly unexpected display of energy on the part of Tots, who had suddenly hurled a piece of chalk at him from the other end of the room. It hit him smartly on the shoulder, leaving a white patch to testify to the excellence of Tots's aim.