Smokes! and surreptitiously! The curate was horrified.
“You are joking surely?” he said.
“Not much of a joke, when I have to supply the fags.” Bobby looked amused. “We have to be mighty close about it. I am not allowed to smoke in the Presence.” So he designated Miss Agatha.
“But we moon about the garden at night and enjoy ourselves.”
“Well played!” cried the curate enthusiastically, and ignored Bobby’s confidence in his warm admiration for Prudence’s spirited return. “That was very neatly placed indeed,” he said.
“Prudence is a very deceptive player. She always scores through trickery,” Bobby observed, and watched the effect of this remark on his disapproving listener. “Nothing very brilliant about her play, you may note; but she wins all the time.”
“She is so very graceful,” the curate said again, as though this quality was accounted a virtue in his estimation, as probably it was.
“He’s an awful ass, Prue,” Bobby confided to her later. “And I’ve spoilt your matrimonial chances by telling him you smoke.”
Whereupon Prudence laughed sceptically.
“As though I couldn’t counteract that by allowing him to convert me from the evil practice,” she said.