The girl's face dimpled with laughter. "I gave it to the cockatoo."
Dynamite could not possibly have been more disconcerting.
"The cockatoo!" echoed Mr. Hirsch automatically, as, becoming aware that the sole au vin blanc on his fork was dripping on to his waistcoat, he dabbed blindly at the spot with his napkin. "And--and may I ask, my dear young lady, what--what the cockatoo did with it?"
"He wouldn't eat it," said Aura.
"And so," interrupted Ted rather viciously, "it was thrown into the stream."
Aura turned swiftly on Ned. This was news. "Did you?" she began.
"So there it lies," remarked Ned, "as the beginning of a Welsh gold-mine. Make a prospectus out of that, Hirsch; it would be as true as most of them, I expect."
"But I do not quite understand," protested Lady Smith-Biggs once more, her pale blue eyes fixed vacantly on Aura. "What! you have never seen a sixpence--how--how dreadful!"
"That is easily remedied," remarked Peter Ramsay; "I believe I have so much in my pocket, anyhow."
"Stay a bit, Ramsay," said Lord Blackborough; "Miss Graham's ignorance is not confined to sixpence. She is generally unacquainted with the coin of the realm."