“As these gentlemen don’t seem to be able to agree as to whose guest you are going to be, Miss Norah, I vote that you settle the question by becoming mine. It would be splendid fun! First rate! Good stalls—bang in the middle of the second row—better than a box—it would be awfully sporting of you, don’t you know. Say you’ll come! Yes! Do! Be the jolly good sort you look, Miss Norah.”
Since the moment Mr Hammond had planted himself at my side, and commenced to conduct himself in such a peculiar manner, both Audrey and Doris had been speechless. Possibly they felt that the singularity of the general proceedings went beyond the capacity of words. But when that Hammond man—who, although a friend of Eveleen’s, was, to all intents and purposes, a stranger to me—called me “a jolly good sort” to my very face, Audrey burst out laughing, as though the joke had gone past bearing.
“What is the matter with you all?” she cried. “Is this a conspiracy between you three, or have you suddenly gone mad? What is it in Norah that has made her, all at once, such an irresistible object of attention?”
While she was still speaking Eveleen came in. She addressed herself to her.
“So, Eveleen, here you are at last; and it’s quite time you were here. Perhaps you will be able to supply the key to the riddle. Mr Carter and Mr Purchase have given Norah our roses and our seats at the theatre; and now Mr Hammond is endeavouring to induce her to accept your gloves and your stall. If there is a rational explanation of these gentlemen’s behaviour, do, dear, lose no time in finding it.”
Eveleen came forward with a smile, and that little alert air which seems to suggest that there must be quicksilver in her veins.
“What’s the joke? Don’t keep me out of it. How do, Walter?” Their acquaintance had got to the Christian-name stage. Eveleen is a little familiar with her young men; though she encourages them to behave only with the strictest decorum. “You’re looking rather chippy; have you been having too many skittles since I saw you?”
She can be slangy; particularly when she thinks that sort of thing is sympathetic. I fancy she endeavours to adapt the style of her conversation to her company. I am sure that when she has been talking to a parson her language has seemed to reek of the odour of sanctity.
I think she expected him to spring to his feet at sight of her, and burst into a fit of jerky enthusiasm. If she did she was disappointed. He just raised himself an inch or two, and, in an extremely perfunctory fashion, extended to her the extreme tips of his fingers.
“Feeling as fit as a fiddler. Sorry you don’t think I look it.” He turned to me. “Don’t you think I’m looking pretty fit, Miss Norah?”