"Let Miss Nevers suggest a new way of playing the oldest game ever invented," added Betty Barkley. "There is no possibility of inventing anything new; everything was first done in the year one. Even protoplasmic cells played hide-and-seek together."
"What rot!" said Reggie. "You can't play that in a new way."
"You could play it in a sporting way," said Cairns.
"How's that, old top?"
"Well, for example, you conceal yourself, and whatever girl finds you has got to marry you. How's that for a reckless suggestion?"
But it had given Reggie something resembling an idea.
"Let us be hot sports," he said, with animation; "draw lots to see which girl will hide somewhere in the house; make a time-limit of one hour; and if any man finds her she'll marry him. There isn't a girl here," he added, jeeringly, "who has the sporting nerve to try it!"
A chorus of protests greeted the challenge. Athalie Vannis declared that she was crazy to marry somebody; but she insisted that the men would only pretend to search, and were really too cowardly to hunt in earnest. Cairns retorted that the girl in concealment would never permit a real live man to miss her hiding place while she possessed lungs to reveal it.
"There isn't," repeated Reggie, "a girl who has the nerve! Not one!" He inspected them scornfully through the wrong end of the megaphone. "Phony sports," he added. "No nerves and all fidgets. Look at me; I don't want to get married; but I'm game for an hour. There isn't a girl here to call my bluff!" And he ventured to glance at Jacqueline.
"They've had a chance to look at you by daylight, Reggie, and that is fatal," said Cairns. "Now, if they were only sure that I'd discover 'em, or the god-like captain yonder, or the beautiful Mr. Desboro——"