"Thought the Duchess had rather a shoppin' face," replied the man, meaning that his hostess had looked worried.
"Don't knew why she should. Got heaps of cake to chew. Might be she missed Demetrius."
"Wheresey hang out?"
"Don't know. Went prancing off on his own. Got a puff?"
The inheritor of Algy's shoes provided the lady with a cigarette. "Fancied she cottoned to th' Askew chap," he remarked, striking a match.
"Sure she did--oh, rather! Aksakoff let on to me 'bout the boy jumping Paris to get fixed--British Embassy fixings, you know. Leah Pentland didn't bring it off somehow. Lucky for her, seeing Jim wasn't a goner. We really could not have received her," ended Mrs. Penworthy; then, aware that she had lapsed into decent English, corrected her mistake: "Mean we couldn't have let her chip into our game."
"Like th' Duchess?" inquired her companion, languidly.
"Don't know, quite. Saucy and swagger and all that. Freezes a bit--what? Talks like a book, you know. Awfully expensive rattle."
The man nodded. "Thought she wasn't up to dick. Daresay she'll spin along on her own freely, when the hump's off."
"Hump? She hasn't got the hump, or the needle either."