Fenellan fluted: ‘Ah?’ He had scent, in the eulogy of a story grown flat as Election hats, of a good sort of man in the way of men, a step or two behind the man of the world. He expressed profound regret at not having heard the silvery ring of the lady’s laughter.
Carling genially conceived a real gratification to be conferred on his wife. ‘Perhaps you will some day honour us?’
‘You spread gold-leaf over the days to come, sir.’
‘Now, if I might name the day?’
‘You lump the gold and make it current coin;—says the blushing bride, who ought not to have delivered herself so boldly, but she had forgotten her bashful part and spoilt the scene, though, luckily for the damsel, her swain was a lover of nature, and finding her at full charge, named the very next day of the year, and held her to it, like the complimentary tyrant he was.’
‘To-morrow, then!’ said Carling intrepidly, on a dash of enthusiasm, through a haggard thought of his wife and the cook and the netting of friends at short notice. He urged his eagerness to ask whether he might indeed have the satisfaction of naming to-morrow.
‘With happiness,’ Fenellan responded.
Mrs. Carling was therefore in for it.
‘To-morrow, half-past seven: as for company to meet you, we will do what we can. You go Westward?’
‘To bed with the sun,’ said the reveller.