"What on earth's the matter?" demanded Jimmy. "You go out of here caroling like a song-bird, and you come back moaning like a lost soul. What's happened?"
"Give me a brandy-and-soda, Pitt, old man. There's a good chap. I'm in a fearful hole."
"Why? What's the matter?"
"I'm engaged," groaned his lordship.
"Engaged! I wish you'd explain. What on earth's wrong with you? Don't you want to be engaged? What's your—?"
He broke off, as a sudden, awful suspicion dawned upon him. "Who is she?" he cried.
He gripped the stricken peer's shoulder, and shook it savagely. Unfortunately, he selected the precise moment when the latter was in the act of calming his quivering nerve-centers with a gulp of brandy-and-soda, and for the space of some two minutes it seemed as if the engagement would be broken off by the premature extinction of the Dreever line. A long and painful fit of coughing, however, ended with his lordship still alive and on the road to recovery.
He eyed Jimmy reproachfully, but Jimmy was in no mood for apologies.
"Who is she?" he kept demanding. "What's her name?"
"Might have killed me!" grumbled the convalescent.