A grin lighted up Stan's good-looking face.
"Oh? How many annas to the rupee are they to-day? By Jove, they are a rum lot up there! Any new prime cuts?"
"Stan, you mustn't!" said Dorothy, peremptorily. "Please don't! Don't listen to him, auntie; he's outrageous."
But His Impudence went on, with his mouth full of bread and butter.
"I've only seen the fore-quarter and the trotter, but you see I haven't been over the house. Did they show you the Bluebeard's Chamber? What is there there? By Jove, it's like Jezebel and the dogs.... But I don't suppose they'll have me up again. There was some chap there, and I got him by himself and told him he didn't know what he was talking about; rotten of me, I know, but you should have heard him! Anarchist—Votes for Women—all the lot; whew!... More tea, Ruth, please——"
Lady Tasker felt the years beginning to ebb away from her again. She had remembered the hammock and the Invisible Men.
"I hope he was—English?" she murmured.
"Who?"
"The man you say you were rude to."
"English? Yes. Why? English? Rather! No end of gas about the Empire. Said it was on a wrong basis or something. Why do you ask?"