“Oh I don’t mind,” said Lord Lambeth. And then they smoked a while in silence. “Fancy his thinking we do no work in England!” the young man resumed.
But it didn’t rouse his friend, who only replied: “I daresay he didn’t really a bit think so.”
“Well, I guess they don’t know much about England over here!” his lordship humorously sighed. After which there was another long pause. “He has got us out of a hole,” observed the young nobleman.
Percy Beaumont genially assented. “Nobody certainly could have been more civil.”
“Littledale said his wife was great fun,” Lord Lambeth then contributed.
“Whose wife—Littledale’s?”
“Our benefactor’s. Mrs. Westgate. What’s his name? J. L. It ‘kind of’ sounds like a number. But I guess it’s a high number,” he continued with freshened gaiety.
The same influences appeared, however, with Mr. Beaumont to make rather for anxiety. “What was fun to Littledale,” he said at last a little sententiously, “may be death to us.”
“What do you mean by that?” his companion asked. “I’m as good a man as Littledale.”
“My dear boy, I hope you won’t begin to flirt,” said the elder man.