For a while we were silent, while the soft strains of the orchestra stole through the smoke-laden air above the hum of conversation.... It had gripped me—the picture painted by Bill Lakington, in his short clipped sentences. The tragedy of it—and, as he had said, the good fortune too.... Duty: pride of family—aye, they have their price. Mayhap Betty Fingarton was paying her share in the knowledge that the next of the line was not her son.... Or did she, with clearer vision, understand the workings of the Great Architect, which at first must have seemed so inscrutable?...
"When is the wedding?" I asked.
"In about a month," said the girl. "Everyone will be there."
"Personally," I murmured, "I shall be one of the forty or fifty odd million who won't. So you can send me an account of it."
"Where are you going, Sir Richard?"
"To a little village way up in the outskirts of Skye," I replied with a smile. "More burial, young lady—and more hard work."
"You ought to take a bit of a rest, Dick," said Bill Lakington. "You deserve it...."
"After I've broken the back of the book, I shall," I answered.
"Are you writing a novel, Sir Richard?" inquired the girl.
"No such claim to immortality," I sighed. "My subject is the mode of life of Glossina palpales—with illustrations."