Nell looked at the bank manager, gave a little laugh.
"We're being awfully rude," she said. "I will try to explain."
She did try. She tried to speak soberly, plainly, but her words sang, jostled each other, grew picturesquely extravagant.
Mr. Tellbridge's mild disapproval was not proof against her eloquence. He professed himself delighted at the good news. He gave Denis a half-holiday, his benignity tempered by a drily expressed suggestion that the work would not suffer much from his absence.
They went straight to Gowan Square, found Ted in, and dragged him off to lunch.
At No. 35 Henley Road, boiled mutton and a bread-and-butter pudding awaited them in vain. At the Express Dairy in Oxford Street four perfectly happy people lunched that day. Ted was quieter. He seemed to derive a certain amount of satisfaction from watching and teasing Sheila Pat. Sheila Pat was very Irish, her sharp little tongue very quick, and very broadly accented. She was never at a loss for a repartee. Her great eyes fairly glittered with excitement; a faint pink flush glowed on either cheek; her pig-tail, owing to constant rude tweaks, stuck out at an aggressive angle. Halfway through lunch, Ted said:—
"And now, suppose some one explains what it's all about."
"Explain!"
"One at a time, please. Oh, not just yet, perhaps. I thought I'd given you time for the effervescence to have subsided a little—"
"Time? An hour or so?" laughed Nell. "Why, we shall go on effervescing like ginger beer for the whole of the next fortnight!"