“You—you mustn’t try!”
“The deuce is in these people beginning with B!” he laughed. “They seem to do things without trying.”
He pressed her hand, raised his hat, and started back to the town. She, on her part, lingered to let him get a clear start of her, and her blue eyes looked as though a breeze had blown across and ruffled them.
Mr Bunker had reached the esplanade, and was sauntering easily back towards the hotel, looking at the people and smiling now and then to himself, when he observed with considerable astonishment two familiar figures strolling towards him. They were none other than the Baron and the Countess, engaged in animated conversation, and apparently on the very best terms with each other. At the sight of him the Baron beamed joyfully.
“Aha, Bonker, so you haf returned!” he cried. “In ze meanvile I haf had vun great good fortune. Let me present my friend Mr Bonker, ze Lady Grillyer.”
The Countess bowed most graciously, and raising a pair of tortoise-shell-rimmed eye-glasses mounted on a stem of the same material, looked at Mr Bunker through these with a by no means disapproving glance.
At first sight it was evident that Lady Alicia must “take after” her noble father. The Countess was aquiline of nose, large of person, and emphatic in her voice and manner.
“You are the ‘showman,’ Mr Bunker, are you not?” she said, with a smile for which many of her acquaintances would have given a tolerable percentage of their incomes.
“It seems,” replied Mr Bunker, smiling back agreeably, “that the Baron is now the showman, and I must congratulate him on his first venture.”
For an instant the Countess seemed a trifle taken aback. It was a considerable number of years since she had been addressed in precisely this strain, and in fact at no time had her admirers ventured quite so dashingly to the attack. But there was something entirely irresistible in Mr Bunker’s manner, partly perhaps because he never made the mistake of heeding a first rebuff. The Countess coughed, then smiled a little again, and said to the Baron, “You didn’t tell me that your showman supplied the little speeches as well.”