"Good evening, Mrs. Erlton," said the little lady, "been, as you see, for a ride. But we were thinking of you and hoping you would pray for us in church."
Kate Erlton's eyebrows went up, as they had a trick of doing when she was scornful. "I am only on my way thither as yet," she replied; "so that now I am aware of your wishes I can attend to them."
The obvious implication roused the aggressor to greater recklessness. "Thanks! but we really deserve something, for we have been buying a parrot for you. Erlton paid a whole fifty rupees for it because it said its prayers and he thought you would like it!"
"That was very kind of Major Erlton,"--there was a fine irony in the title,--"but, as he knows, I'm not fond of things with gay feathers and loud voices."
The man, listening, moved his feet restlessly in his stirrups. It was too bad of Allie to provoke these sparring matches. Foolish, too, since Kate's tongue was sharp when she chose to rouse herself. None sharper, in his opinion.
"If you don't want the bird," he interrupted shortly, "tell the groom to wring its neck."
Mrs. Gissing looked at him, her reproachful blue eyes perfect wells of simplicity. "Wring its neck! How can you, when you paid all that money to save it from being killed! That is the real story, Mrs. Erlton; it is indeed----"
He interrupted his wife's quick glance of interest impatiently. "The main point being that I had, or shall have to pay fifty rupees--which I must get. So I must be off to the racecourse if I don't want to be posted. I ought to have been there a quarter of an hour ago; should have been but for that confounded bird. Are you coming, Mrs. Gissing, or not?"
"Now, Erlton!" she replied, "don't be stupid. As if he didn't know, Mrs. Erlton, that I am every bit as much interested as he is in the match with that trainer man!--what's his name, Erlton? Greyman--isn't it? I have endless gloves on it, sir, so of course I'm coming to see fair play."
Major Erlton shot a rapid glance at her, as if to see what she really meant; then muttered something angrily about chaff as, with a dig of his heels, he swung his horse round to the side of hers.