'There are fillets of beef coming, and ducks,' interpolated Miss Abingdon. 'I let you know this, Peter, as Jane seems to have erased our only menu. What will Sir Nigel have, do you think?' she went on. 'I don't think he is at all well; he was reading his Bible in bed, and I 'm not sure that we ought not to send for some of his people.'
'Poor Toffy never had any people,' said Peter. 'They were all just as unlucky as he is, and most of them died violent deaths when they were young; and one of them, I know, founded some sort of queer religion, so perhaps Toffy takes after him in his Biblical researches.'
At this moment Sir Nigel Christopherson walked into the room looking as white as any ghost.
'Toffy, you lunatic!' said Peter, 'why can't you lie still?'
Sir Nigel apologized for being late and declined to have anything brought back for him.
'How are the Amalekites and Hittites and Girgashites?' said Peter, making room for his friend at the table.
'I don't like the Bible joked about,' said Miss Abingdon severely.
'Toffy should have been a parson,' said Peter; 'even at Eton he was always wondering why Cain was afraid that all men should kill him when he had only a father and mother and perhaps two or three little brothers and sisters in the world. And he used to fret himself into a fever wondering if the sun really stood still in Ajalon and what Selah meant in the Psalms.'
'I think,' said Miss Abingdon, 'that such discussions are best left for Sundays.'
'We will go on with our dance-list,' said Jane; 'Mrs. Wrottesley can let us have several rooms at the vicarage, or, if the worst comes to the worst, we might have tents in the garden.'