Sir Peter was getting impatient. He saw all the old, narrow-minded prejudices being trotted out once more. "You're not going to begin that again!" he cried, angrily.
"She's Lucy Pryor," said Lord Otford quietly.
The Admiral stared at him. For a moment the name conveyed no meaning. "Lucy Pryor—?" Then the meaning suddenly flashed on him, and he gasped, "Not Lucy Pryor!"
"Lucy Pryor!" repeated Lord Otford. "Ha!" he cried, with bitter self-mockery, "I was telling her how impossible the marriage was—"
"And she turned out to be Lucy Pryor!" The Admiral was so hugely delighted that for a moment he was unable to go on. "Jack, my boy," he roared, doubled up with laughter, "you must have felt like six-pennorth o' ha'-pence—what?"
"I did," answered Lord Otford, grimly; and then he added shamefacedly, "But now I—I want to see her again. I must see her again."
"Never know when you 've had enough, eh?" chuckled Sir Peter, wiping the tears from his streaming eyes.
"Laugh, you brute!" cried Lord Otford. "Laugh! Well you may. She 'll never allow me inside her house. She was magnificent! Patuit dea, Peter! She came the Goddess!"
"What did I tell you?" laughed Sir Peter, waving his handkerchief triumphantly. "Didn't I say—?"
"Can't you coax her out here?" interrupted his friend.