Her eyes met his and there was mockery in her eyes.
“This, Cheetah, is the morning mood,” she remarked.
“This is the essential mood. Listen, Amanda—”
He stopped short. He looked towards the gangway, they both looked. The magic word “Breakfast” came simultaneously from them.
“Eggs,” she said ravenously, and led the way.
A smell of coffee as insistent as an herald's trumpet had called a truce between them.
3
Their marriage had been a comparatively inconspicuous one, but since that time they had been engaged upon a honeymoon of great extent and variety. Their wedding had taken place at South Harting church in the marked absence of Lady Marayne, and it had been marred by only one untoward event. The Reverend Amos Pugh who, in spite of the earnest advice of several friends had insisted upon sharing in the ceremony, had suddenly covered his face with the sleeves of his surplice and fled with a swift rustle to the vestry, whence an uproar of inadequately smothered sorrow came as an obligato accompaniment to the more crucial passages of the service. Amanda appeared unaware of the incident at the time, but afterwards she explained things to Benham. “Curates,” she said, “are such pent-up men. One ought, I suppose, to remember that. But he never had anything to go upon at all—not anything—except his own imaginations.”
“I suppose when you met him you were nice to him.”
“I was nice to him, of course....”