"Five curtain-calls," said Roger. "Very satisfactory!"
"It's splendid, Gilbert," Mrs. Graham exclaimed. "I'm sure it'll be a great success!"
"Oh, dear, O Lord, I wish it were over!" Gilbert replied.
"Let's fill him with whisky," said Ninian, rising and taking hold of Gilbert's arm, and he and Henry took him and led him to the bar where they met Jimphy, looking like a lost rabbit.
"Hilloa, Jimphy!" they exclaimed, and he turned gleefully to welcome them. Here at all events was something he could comprehend. He congratulated Gilbert. "Jolly good, old chap! Have a drink," he said, and insisted that they should join him at the bar. "Of course," he added privately to Henry, "this sort of stuff isn't really in my line ... jolly good and all that, of course ... but still it's not in my line. All the same, a chap has to congratulate a chap. Oh, Cecily wants you to go and talk to her. You know where she is, don't you?"
He turned to listen to Ninian who was describing the accident which had happened when the Gigantic started on her first trip to America. "She jolly near sank a cruiser," he was saying as Henry moved away from the bar. "That was the second accident. The first time, she broke from her moorings...."
He pushed his way through the crowd of drinking and gossiping men, and entered the stalls. Lady Cecily saw him coming, and she beckoned to him.
"Who is that nice girl in the box?" she asked, as he sat down in Jimphy's seat. "She sat beside you...."
"Oh, Ninian's sister," he replied. "Mary Graham."
"She's very pretty, isn't she?"