“She had the next seat on the train from Singapore, curse her!” replied Ledyard vindictively. “And she sat there as good and quiet as pie, squeaking out, ‘Yes, I sank you’ and ‘No, I sank you’ every time I asked her if she wanted the window up, or the shades down or—or anything. I tell you butter wouldn’t have melted in her nasty little painted mouth! Then when we found that you and Bhakdi had lit out after tigers, and I decided that I’d just have time before the next boat to hire a crew and hunt you down, she went off into twenty-one different kinds of hysterics until I promised to bring her along, too. ‘Five meenit—only five small lil’ meenit to spik weeth the gr-reat, the good Sultan, and the gr-reat, nobl’ Honable Meestaire Tonee Calver’, and her Manuelo would be restore once more to her arms.’ When I think that I fell for that I could choke down a quart of carbolic straight.”
“Oh, I can quite see how it came about—quite, quite!” murmured the Honourable Tony, pensively sympathetic.
“Believe me, you can’t see the half of it!” Ledyard ran a frenzied hand through the sandy hair. “Listen, how about getting away now, before she turns up?”
“Well, upon my word, you unprincipled young devil, I’ve yet to hear a cooler proposition! Damme if you don’t curdle the blood—damme if you don’t. Are you asking me to sit by and condone a callous desertion of this young female to the lures of a wily and dissolute potentate?”
Ledyard faced his delighted inquisitor unabashed.
“Oh, go on—I’ll bet that’s what she’s after—and if you ask me, he’s plenty good enough for her. She’s probably a cousin of his; any one with all that fuzzy black hair and those black saucer eyes and nasty glittery little teeth——”
“Wrong again, dear boy. The lady is undeniably the legitimate offspring of Lady Scott’s English maid and a Portuguese wine merchant, born in Madeira. She is also a British subject, being the legitimate widow of the late Tommy Potts, one-time pianist of the Imperial Doll Baby Girls.”
“Widow?” demanded Ledyard incredulously.
“Widow and orphan, William. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Tommy, alas, passed away while they were touring New Zealand, in a distressingly complicated attack of appendicitis and D. T.’s. She didn’t tell you?”
“No, she did not tell me,” replied William somewhat aggressively. “See here, how do you happen to know so much about this Portuguese Empire Doll Baby?”