She was teasing. He knew it, and it infuriated him.
'Oh, no doubt you're sorry too that you weren't there with the Duke and Duchess, and the King and Queen, and your cousins, the Earl and Countess,' he flung at her.
'They'll be your cousins too—by marriage. And if you ever become a very rich man and take me back to England, you'll have to "Chris and Molly" them and to give him a big order for wine....'
That mollified McKeith.
'And if I wasn't a rich man, and didn't give a big order, they wouldn't care a twopenny damn for me.'
'Molly mightn't—unless by chance you were taken up in high quarters and made the fashion—like Cecil Rhodes and "Doctor Jim," or some new edition of Buffalo Bill. Then she'd call you "one of nature's uncrowned kings." But Chris Gaverick isn't a bad sort, if his wife would let him be natural.... They hadn't got my cablegram about you, Colin, when this was written,' she went on. 'I wish I could have told the Queen myself. I'm sure she would have been sympathetic. And now I don't suppose I shall ever meet her again.'
He rejoined with clumsy sarcasm.
'I see. The Queen of Hartenburg was an intimate friend of yours—the sort of chum who'd have been likely to drop in any day for a yarn and a cup of tea!'
'She often did when she hunted with our hounds in Ireland, and it IS true that the Queen of Hartenburg was quite an intimate friend of mine—for two winters, anyhow. But I assure you, it hasn't made me proud, and if the Queen of Hartenburg bores you, let us talk of something else.'
She gave another glance at the last sheet of Lady Gaverick's letter and thrust it into a pigeon-hole of the writing-table, then came back to the long settee on which he sat. All the time, his gaze had never left her. She saw that he was disturbed.