It wasn't. Out of odds and ends of raw materials, and great slugs and gallons of culinary genius, Chef produced a lunch that transcended even Mary's and Langham's belief in him.
But it was Arthur who insisted that champagne be opened; and perhaps the champagne made the lunch seem even more delicious than it really was.
Maud and Eve had already discounted Arthur's engagement and Lee's. They had not, it is true, learned of the latter without feeling that if they didn't hurry they would miss their train; but they had disguised and fought off that feeling until now they were their gay and natural selves. It remained for Mr. Langham to shock them suddenly into a new set of emotions.
"I should be obliged," said he, rising to his feet, with a glass of champagne in his hand, "if everybody would drink the health of the happiest man present." Arthur and Renier looked very self-conscious. But Mr. Langham concluded: "And that man is myself. I have the honor to announce that, beyond peradventure, the loveliest and sweetest girl in all the world——"
And at that Mary blushed so and looked so happy and beautiful that everybody shouted with joy and surprise and laughter, and drank champagne, and tossed compliments about like shuttlecocks. And Arthur and Renier and Langham had a violent dispute as to which was the happiest; and decided to settle the dispute with sabres at—twenty paces.
Her first burst of surprise and excitement and pleasure having passed, Eve Darling experienced a sudden sinking feeling. She felt as if all the people she most loved to be with were going away on a delightful excursion and that she was being left behind. It was at this moment, while the uproar was still at its height, that she heard the shaken voice of Mr. Bob Jonstone in her ear.
"How about us?" he demanded.
"How about us—what?" she answered.
Then she felt her hand seized and held in the secret asylum furnished by the table-cloth, and there stole over her the solaceful feeling of having been asked at the last moment to go upon the delightful excursion.