"That was the sweetest thing that ever happened," said Babs, after all traces of havoc had been obliterated. "If you could have seen yourself when the cream squirted out of the end! I must tell the Idealists about it at the next séance. Now, I must not laugh any more, or I shall get a purple face. Tell me, is my nose shiny?"
She submitted her peach-like countenance to Philip's embarrassed inspection.
"It looks all right," he said.
"I don't believe you," said Miss Duncombe, and extracted a small mirror from a gold bag. She viewed herself with a gasp of dismay.
"How can you say such a thing?" she exclaimed indignantly.
Swiftly she produced a powder-puff, and proceeded to repair the ravages caused by excessive mirth in a warm room. The unsophisticated Philip gazed at her, speechless, and was still gazing when he was whirled away by his indefatigable hostess—Lady Rendle believed in keeping her male callers circulating: it enabled those whose conversational stock-in-trade was scanty to indulge in the luxury of repetition—to the side of one Sheila Garvey.
Miss Garvey began at once:—
"Do you play cricket at all?"
"No, not now," said Philip; "but I play—"
Apparently Miss Garvey had no desire to discuss other pastimes.