The Captain, however, had had something to say to her. At first his mumbling into his moustache had not penetrated to her intelligence; she had only heard broken repetitions of "Dear old Mops—only for a week or two—knew you weren't without—meant to write, but dashed awkward thing to explain by letter, and was coming up in a week in any case—if she stuck fast he'd see what could be done——"
"Eh?" Louie had said at last. "What's that, Chaff?"
Chaff had repeated his mumblings. At the end of them she had gathered that the needy Captain had borrowed the quarter's allowance that had been entrusted to him for despatch. Louie had merely given a little preoccupied laugh and patted his hand.
"All right, old boy; don't worry," she had said.
A sample or two of her conversation with her mother must answer for the rest. For quite twenty minutes the Honourable Emily's head had been buried in the sofa-cushions, and the Trant coal-and-blanket charitable account had lain where it had fallen from her hand—across her cheek.
"That's all," Louie had ended with hard composure.
"Oh—oh——" the mother had moaned.
"And as I say, I won't marry him."
"Oh—you must—you must!"
"Why? Because Uncle Augustus will say I must?"