"I beg your pardon," he said, desperately, "but I don't remember having said so."
"Oh, but you did, surely, as we sat under the tree."
"No hedging now," said Silvia, with merry severity. "It will be splendid. And the Prince wants to be in at it."
"I don't think we can have Otto," said Mary.
"But I've promised him, my dear. It's all arranged. Mr. Harper is to come to dinner. And not a word is to be said to Klondyke."
"I dare say Mr. Harper won't want to come to dinner?" Mary looked quizzically across at the sailorman through the dim light of a car interior passing under a Hammersmith archway. "One dinner per annum with the famille Pridmore will be quite enough for him, I expect."
"That cuts off his retreat, anyway," said Silvia. "And I think, as the Prince is going to be there, it will only be fair to have Edward Ambrose. Of course, Mr. Harper, you fully realize what you have to do. To begin with, you enter with a nautical roll, give the slack of your trousers a hitch, and as soon as you see Klondyke, who, I dare say, will be smoking a foul pipe and reading the Pink Un, you will strike your hand on your knee and shout at the top of your voice, 'What ho, my hearty!'"
"How absurd you are!" said Mary, with a rather wry smile. She had just caught the look on the Sailor's face.
"Well, my dear, that's the program, as the Prince and I have arranged it."
Henry Harper was literally forced into a promise to dine in Queen Street on an appointed day in order to meet Klondyke. There was really no escape. It would have been an act of sheer ungraciousness to have held out. Besides, when all was said, the Sailor wanted very much to see his hero.