"Something will be said if I go," observed Malcourt cheerfully.
Portlaw was exasperated. "There's a girl there you behaved badly to. You'd better stay away."
Malcourt looked innocently surprised.
"Now, who could that be! I have, it is true, at times, misbehaved, but I can't ever remember behaving badly—"
Portlaw, too mad to speak, strode wrathfully away toward the stables.
Malcourt was interested to see that he could stride now without waddling.
"Marvellous, marvellous!—the power of love!" he mused sentimentally; "Porty is no longer rotund—only majestically portly. See where he hastens lightly to his Alida!
"Shepherd fair and maidens all—
Too-ri-looral!
Too-ri-looral!"
And, very gracefully, he sketched a step or two in contra-dance to his own shadow on the grass.
"Shepherd fair and maidens all—
Truly rural,
Too-ri-looral,
Man prefers his maidens plural;
One is none, he wants them all!
Too-ri-looral!
Too-ri-looral—"