PART XXIV
THE HAPPY DISPATCH
"Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love, but——"
In the Morning-room. Time—About 1 P.M.
Undershell (to himself alone). I'm rather sorry that that Miss Spelwane couldn't stay. She's a trifle angular—but clever. It was distinctly sharp of her to see through that fellow Spurrell from the first, and lay such an ingenious little trap for him. And she has a great feeling for Literature—knows my verses by heart, I discovered, quite accidentally. All the same, I wish she hadn't intercepted those snowdrops. Now I shall have to go out and pick some more. (Sounds outside in the entrance hall.) Too late—they've got back from church!
Mrs. Brooke-Chatteris (entering with Lady Rhoda, Sir Rupert and Bearpark). Such a nice, plain, simple service—I'm positively ravenous!
Lady Rhoda. Struck me some of those chubby choir-boys wanted smackin'. What a business it seems to get the servants properly into their pew—as bad as boxin' a string of hunters! As for you, Archie, the way you fidgeted durin' the sermon was downright disgraceful!... So there you are, Mr. Blair; not been to church; but I forgot—p'raps you're a Dissenter, or somethin'?
Undershell (annoyed). Only, Lady Rhoda, in the sense that I have hitherto failed to discover any form of creed that commands my intellectual assent.
Lady Rhoda (unimpressed). I expect you haven't tried. Are you a—what d'ye call it?—a Lacedemoniac?
Undershell (with lofty tolerance). I presume you mean a "Laodicean." No, I should rather describe myself as a Deist.
Archie (in a surly undertone). What's a Deast when he's at home? If he'd said a Beast, now! (Aloud, as Pilliner enters with Captain Thicknesse.) Hullo, why, here's Thicknesse! So you haven't gone, after all, then?