"And that you two were going to be married as soon as you could pull off the event?"
"Yes." The voice was palpably embarrassed. "But——"
"Well?"
"But—things you don't mind people knowing look beastly in cold print."
"If I were in your shoes I should think they looked beautiful."
Nothing but a faint buzz came back. Lady Hannah went on:
"If I were in your shoes, and such a pearl and prize and paragon as Lynette Mildare had consented to marry me, I should want the whole world to envy me my colossal good luck. I should go about in sandwich-boards advertising it. I should buy a megaphone, and proclaim it through that. I should——"
There was no response beyond the buzzing of the wire. Beauvayse had evidently hung up the receiver.
"Is there any creature upon earth more cowardly than a man engaged?" Lady Hannah demanded of space. There was a futile struggle inside the telephone-box. Somebody else was trying to ring up. She put the receiver back upon the crutches, and—
"Ting—ting—ting!" said the bell in a high, thin voice.