"Why, Lucy," put in Evelyn, "I saw some very nice hats."
"I did not say none of them trimmed their hats well," said Lucy severely. "I only said they all trimmed their own."
"We are rather too early in the day for toilettes," said Sir Douglas. "I confess one does not see many attractive women here; but there was a highly respectable British matron just opposite us at that last table."
"Yes," said Lucy indignantly. "She was the worst of all; sailing about in her comfortable British plumage, with that air of self-satisfied horror at the depth of Continental wickedness, and of fond pride in the bouncing flapper at her heels. She made me feel that it was worse to look on than to play."
"Don't distress yourself," said Sir Douglas quietly; "you did play, you know. Ask the churchwarden."
"I owe you five francs," said Evelyn, "or ten. Which is it?"
"Don't!" said Lucy. "It is no laughing matter for me, I can assure you. Many is the trick I have played on that man. Heigh-ho! He has his revenge."
"Don't be down-hearted. You had at least the satisfaction of winning."
But Lucy was in no humour for being teased, and, to change the subject, she began to tell the story of the different tragedies she had witnessed.
"It is all nonsense, you know," said Sir Douglas good-humouredly. "That is the sort of stuff they put in the good books. People who are really being bitten don't attract attention to themselves by overdone by-play."