In Sheila’s charming octagon room, an impatient little group of people crowded about some one seated cross-legged on a quaint Chinese stool. “Come, Sheila, do make him! He’s such a lazy beggar——”
“And he’s had his eternal three cups of tea; there’s not a particle of excuse——”
“Warner, you Sphinx, unravel! We’re waiting, these fifteen minutes; why are you invited, d’ye suppose, if not to tell stories? You’re no good at all en tête-à-tête, you know.”
“My dear Mr. Warner (it was a delightfully ugly old lady in a marvelous tea-gown, who spoke to him), I’m afraid you really must gratify them. Such noise—and my poor neuralgia—really!”
The person on the tabouret raised his careless attractive face to her, smiling. “You win, Lady Trot! What shall it be, Sheila? Broad farce, or screaming tragedy? Nothing so appallingly funny, you know, as a really tremendous tragedy.”
“Then tell us one,” commanded Sheila—a veritable bit of her own Dresden china, as she glanced at him over the tea-cups. She was genuinely fond of Warner, the little society lady; his sense of the dramatic, something told her, made them subtly kin. “Tell us the most awful—and the funniest—tragedy you can think of, Jim, an original one, you know.” And Sheila pushed her chair back from the teatable, and curled down into it, in a luxury of anticipation.
“All right”—Warner’s drawl came a bit slower than usual; he was sitting forward, gazing steadily at the fire—“I’ll tell you one. It—I’m quite sure it’s original, that it’s never been told before. Because,” he laughed contagiously, looking around at all of them, “it was my tragedy, you see!”
“Yours—ha! ha!” Every one was laughing with him, as they drew their chairs into a closer circle. “A tragedy that happened to Jim! That’s a good one. Go on, Jim; it starts rippingly!”
Warner balanced a plate of frivolous pink cakes on one of his crossed knees; his eyes, as he regarded them, were full of negligent amusement. “She—that’s the way all tragedies begin, of course—was a bachelor girl, and lived in a flat. Nothing very original about that, but then she was the sort of girl who made the commonplace very nice. She even made me very nice—for a time: at least so people told me. And out of sheer gratitude, I suppose, I—silly ass!—fell in love with her.”
“Haw! Haw!” It was Hawley’s large roar that interrupted. He had just come in, and was standing near the door. “Warner in love!—that’s the best yet! Nothing that chap won’t tell, for the sake of a story. Funny old Warner!”