"I'll tell you what," he continued presently. "I shall be in town on Wednesday. I'll go and look Lance up then."
"But, Hughie," cried Joan in dismay, "Wednesday is the day of the entertainment. You must come to that. What is your engagement, if it's not indiscreet to inquire?"
"Dentist," said Hughie lugubriously.
"Dentist?" Joan laughed, or rather crowed, in her characteristically childlike way. "Hughie at the dentist's! It seems so funny," she explained apologetically.
"It will be the reverse of funny," said Hughie severely, "when he gets hold of me. Do you know how long it is since I sat in a dentist's chair? Eight years, no less!"
"You'll catch it!" said Miss Gaymer confidently. "But you simply must not go on that day. I want you at the show. Can't you change the date?"
"The assassin gave me to understand," said Hughie, "that it was a most extraordinary piece of luck for me that he should be able to take me at all; and he rather suggested that if I broke the appointment I need not expect another on this side of the grave. Besides, next Wednesday is about our one off-day from shooting. I also—"
Miss Gaymer fixed a cold and accusing eye on him.
"Confess, miserable shuffler!" she said. "You arranged that date with the dentist on purpose, so as to escape the theatricals."
"Guilty, my lord!" replied the criminal resignedly.