A hot rivalry appeared to have sprung up between the men surrounding Barbara for possession of the flower she had been wearing tucked into her corsage. It was in her hand now, and as the Colonel glanced towards her she sprang lightly upon a stool, and held it high above her head.
"No quarrelling, gentlemen!" she called out. "He who can reach it may take it. Oh, Jack, my poor darling, you will never do it!"
Half a dozen arms reached up; the Lady Barbara, from the advantage of her stool, laughed down in the faces upturned to her. Colonel Audley, taller than any of that striving court, set down his wine glass and walked up behind her, and nipped the flower from her hand.
She turned quickly; a wave of colour rushed into her cheeks. "Oh! You! Infamous! I did not bargain for a man of your inches!" she said.
"A cheat! Fudged, by Jove!" cried Captain Chambers. "Give it up, Audley, you dog!"
"Not a bit of it," responded the Colonel, fitting it in his buttonhole. "He who could reach it might take it. I abode most strictly by the rules." He held out his hands to Barbara. "Come down from your perch! You invited me here tonight and have not vouchsafed me one word."
She laid her hands in his, but drew them away as soon as she stood on the floor again. "Oh, you must be content with having won your prize!" she said carelessly. "I warn you, it came from a hothouse and will soon fade. Dear Jack, I'm devilish thirsty!"
The young man addressed offered his arm; she was borne away by him into an adjoining salon. With a shade of malice in his voice the Comte de Lavisse said: "Helas! You are set down, mon Colonel!"
"I am indeed," replied Audley, and went off to flirt with one of the Misses Arden.
He was presently singled out by his host, who wanted his opinion of the military situation. Lord Vidal was suffering from what his irreverent younger brother described as a fit of the sullens, but he was pleasant enough to Audley. His wife, her hard sense bent on promoting a match between an improvident sister-inlaw and a wealthy (though foreign) nobleman, seized the opportunity to inform the Colonel that her family expected hourly to receive the tidings of Bab's engagement to the Comte de Lavisse. The desired effect of this confidence was a little spoiled by her husband's saying hastily: "Pooh! nonsense! I don't more than half like it."