"I say, I'm awfully sorry, but it isn't my fault, Captain Goby, and Ethel Mytton is a very nice girl, and dead in love with you."
"Is she?" sighed Goby.
"Mr. de Vere, I've got a bulldog—"
"Damn bulldogs!" said De Vere.
Bob seized Gordon.
"Do you feel very bad, Mr. Gordon?" he asked, sympathetically. "I almost wish it had been you."
"It can't be helped," said Gordon, gloomily. "I never had a chance. Come and see me in the city next week, Bob."
Rivaulx and Carew and Williams took their hats and slipped from the house, while Bob did what he could to soften things for them.
"I'll come and see you all very often," he cried. "Good-bye now!"
An hour later, when Titania had the baby upon her capacious lap, and said how certain she had been the whole time that Bramber was Penelope's choice, Bob walked around the garden with the bishop and Lord Bradstock.