“What a rabbit you are, Freddie! Why on earth are you so afraid of mother?”
Freddie looked at him as a timid young squire might have gazed upon St. George when the latter set out to do battle with the dragon. He was of the amiable type which makes heroes of its friends. In the old days when he had fagged for him at Winchester he had thought Derek the most wonderful person in the world, and this view he still retained. Indeed, subsequent events had strengthened it. Derek had done the most amazing things since leaving school. He had had a brilliant career at Oxford, and now, in the House of Commons, was already looked upon by the leaders of his party as one to be watched and encouraged. He played polo superlatively well, and was a fine shot. But of all his gifts and qualities the one that extorted Freddie’s admiration in its intensest form was his lion-like courage as exemplified by his behavior in the present crisis. There he sat, placidly eating toast and marmalade, while the boat-train containing Lady Underhill already sped on its way from Dover to London. It was like Drake playing bowls with the Spanish Armada in sight.
“I wish I had your nerve!” he said, awed. “What I should be feeling, if I were in your place and had to meet your mater after telling her that I was engaged to marry a girl she had never seen, I don’t know. I’d rather face a wounded tiger!”
“Idiot!” said Derek placidly.
“Not,” pursued Freddie, “that I mean to say anything in the least derogatory and so forth to your jolly old mater, if you understand me, but the fact remains she scares me pallid! Always has, ever since the first time I went to stay at your place when I was a kid. I can still remember catching her eye the morning I happened by pure chance to bung an apple through her bedroom window, meaning to let a cat on the sill below have it in the short ribs. She was at least thirty feet away, but, by Jove, it stopped me like a bullet!”
“Push the bell, old man, will you? I want some more toast.”
Freddie did as he was requested with growing admiration.
“The condemned man made an excellent breakfast,” he murmured. “More toast, Parker,” he added, as that admirable servitor opened the door. “Gallant! That’s what I call it. Gallant!”
Derek tilted his chair back.
“Mother is sure to like Jill when she sees her,” he said.