“Don’t let modesty stand in your way, my dear Suffle. This favor would be nothing—a mere trifle.”
“Oh no, now, I wouldn’t permit it,” said Suffle, magnanimously. “But you are such a deucedly clever fellow, don’t you know, that I thought you might be able to devise something, something to—well, you know.”
“Yes, oh yes,” said Adam, pulling calmly at his long golden mustache. He meditated for a moment and idly picked up a dice-box, placed in readiness for the evening’s play upon the table. “Do you ever fripper away your time with these? If you do, perhaps we might arrange a little harmless device without much trouble.”
At one of the doors, the figure of Lady Margaret appeared and disappeared as Suffle expressed his eagerness to know what the plan in Adam’s head might be. Although she had glided swiftly from room to room in search of Rust, Lady Margaret had frowned when she saw him in company with her fiancé, and petulantly beating her fan in her fragrant little palm, she had gone back around toward a secondary entrance, in which a heavy curtain hung. She was vaguely wondering what the two could find to talk about together, and to what extent they were gambling, that they went at the dice thus early.
She now met Sir William Phipps, Governor-elect of New England, who had finally arrived and who was scanning the gathering company for a sight of Adam Rust.
“Oh, how well you are looking, Sir William,” she cried to Phipps, delightedly.
“I am looking for a friend,” said the captain, with his customary bluntness. “But thank you, Lady Margaret, thank you, heartily.”
“If you are looking for a friend, why, look over my head?” she said to him, prettily. “Oh, you dear Colonial Governors are such delightfully honest people. We all have to like you, really.”
“I have found some honest men in England,” said the Captain, with conviction. “The Puritans are growing numerous among your people.”
Lady Margaret laughed, spontaneously enough. “And what about our women?” she said. “Do you find them at all—well, charming?”