As a matter of fact, as I have already explained, my poor dear aunt is an extremely commonplace old Army widow, whose husband happened to get knighted among the New Year's honours for some brush with the natives on the Shan frontier. But Lady Meadowcroft was at the stage where a title is a title; and the discovery that I was the nephew of a “titled person” evidently interested her. I could feel rather than see that she glanced significantly aside at Sir Ivor, and that Sir Ivor in return made a little movement of his shoulders equivalent to “I told you so.”
Now Hilda knew perfectly well that the aunt of whom I spoke WAS Lady Tepping; so I felt sure that she had played this card of malice prepense, to pique Lady Meadowcroft.
But Lady Meadowcroft herself seized the occasion with inartistic avidity. She had hardly addressed us as yet. At the sound of the magic passport, she pricked up her ears, and turned to me suddenly. “Burma?” she said, as if to conceal the true reason for her change of front. “Burma? I had a cousin there once. He was in the Gloucestershire Regiment.”
“Indeed?” I answered. My tone was one of utter unconcern in her cousin's history. “Miss Wade, will you take Bombay ducks with your curry?” In public, I thought it wise under the circumstances to abstain from calling her Hilda. It might lead to misconceptions; people might suppose we were more than fellow-travellers.
“You have had relations in Burma?” Lady Meadowcroft persisted.
I manifested a desire to discontinue the conversation. “Yes,” I answered, coldly, “my uncle commanded there.”
“Commanded there! Really! Ivor, do you hear? Dr. Cumberledge's uncle commanded in Burma.” A faint intonation on the word commanded drew unobtrusive attention to its social importance. “May I ask what was his name?—my cousin was there, you see.” An insipid smile. “We may have friends in common.”
“He was a certain Sir Malcolm Tepping,” I blurted out, staring hard at my plate.
“Tepping! I think I have heard Dick speak of him, Ivor.”
“Your cousin,” Sir Ivor answered, with emphatic dignity, “is certain to have mixed with nobbut the highest officials in Burma.”