Since his marriage he had not singled Lady Massey out in public, so that it was with triumph mixed with surprise that she held out her hand to him. “My lord!—You know Sir Willoughby, I believe? And Miss Cloke, of course,” she said, indicating two of her companions. “How do you like the Iphigbrie, sir? Lord Lethbridge and I are agreed that Marin-ozza is sadly out of voice. What do you say?”
“To tell you the truth,” he replied. “I only arrived in time to see her exit.” He turned. “Ah, Lethbridge!” he said in his soft, sleepy way. “What a fortunate rencontre! I apprehend that I stand in your debt, do I not?”
Lady Massey looked sharply round, but the Earl had moved to where Lethbridge stood at the back of the box, and Sir Willoughby Monk’s stout form obscured her view of him.
Lethbridge bowed deeply. “I should be happy indeed to think so, my lord,” he said with exquisite politeness.
“Oh, but surely!” insisted Rule, gently twirling his eyeglass. “I have been held quite spell-bound by the recountal of your—what shall I call it?—your knight-errantry this very afternoon.”
Lethbridge’s teeth gleamed in a smile. “That, my lord? A mere nothing, believe me.”
“But I am quite lost in admiration, I assure you,” said Rule. “To tackle three—it was three, was it not? Ah yes!—to tackle three desperate villains single-handed argues an intrepidity—
or should I say a daring?—you were always daring, were you not, my dear Lethbridge?—a daring, then, that positively takes one’s breath away.”
“To have succeeded,” said Lethbridge, still smiling, “in depriving your lordship of breath is a triumph in itself.”
“Ah!” sighed the Earl. “But you will make me emulative, my dear Lethbridge. More of these deeds of daring and I shall really have to see if I cannot—er—deprive you of breath.”