"Sent me in a cab, as if I were his valet," said Randal, "to fetch his newest and purplest raiment from his beastly little flat."
"Nothing like it," said George, "to take the taste of savagery out of the mouth. If the proletariat would only dress for dinner every night, we shouldn't have any labour troubles. The Nationalisation of the Dinner-jacket would be death to the Agitator. They say Abe Grinnel is drafting a bill to make it illegal."
Lady Elizabeth came in with Caldegard. Amaryllis soon had her father at one end of the room in a subdued conversation of which the hostess had little difficulty in guessing the subject. The two brothers, she observed, had come together at the other end, and were looking out of the window across the park. She took George discreetly away from his own room.
Of yesterday Randal and Dick had already talked much that morning; but of that adventure which he accounted the greatest, Dick had said nothing.
"Amaryllis has told me," said Randal.
"I'm glad," said Dick. "It didn't come easy to start the subject. I'm not used to it yet."
"Neither of you could have done better," said the elder brother. "I congratulate you, dear boy. And I want to give you—to make you a present of a thing that isn't mine—couldn't have been mine, anyhow. But, all the same, I give it you."
"Thanks," replied the younger. "But what the devil d'you mean?"
Randal looked at him.
"You don't mean—you——" began Dick, and stopped short, shocked by conviction.