"You look glum, old man," said Fenella. "What's the matter? Do you want your lunch?"
Lumsden got up and stretched. He had been pulling at his moustache, and one hair—a white one—was on the shoulder of his blue reefer. She picked it off, held it up to the light, looked unfathomably at him and blew it daintily into the air.
"Perhaps we'd best have lunch now," she said. "I want to get to Beverbrook soon and see what arrangements they've made. Do you remember Edmaston, Bryan, where they put that dreadful polish down—Takko or Stikko or something—and when my foot stuck I buzzed and every one laughed?"
"Don't you feel nervous, Flash?"
"Just a teeny. When do They come?"
"Oh, to dinner; but you won't be introduced till you've danced. And remember, Flash, you must only speak when you're spoken to by Them. Just answer questions."
"I'll try not to disgrace you," she said airily, and led the way to the pavilion.
IX
BEATEN AT THE POST
She was very gay and flippant during lunch, and while crossing the bay, and in the motor on the way to the great ducal house, where she was going, if not to sing for her supper, at least to dance for her dinner. She was very serious and a little dictatorial on the stage, but immediately after tea took the owner of the Chaste Goddess and so much else by the arm, and proceeded to drag him on a prolonged tour of inspection, through the stables, round the noble Italian gardens—at whose lichened fawns and satyrs she made faces, expressive of the utmost scorn and defiance, but which only succeeded in being charming, and the English garden—where the leaden shepherdesses were pronounced "ducks"; into the aviary to drive four macaws to frenzy with a long straw, and back by orchid houses and hothouses to the terrace again. She picked a good many flowers and ate a quantity of fruit.