“Mrs Ambrose is Irish—you may not be aware——” broke in Major Ambrose hastily.
“My dear lady, forgive me!” Colonel Bayard’s gesture of contrition would have disarmed a heart of stone. “What have I said—anything to wound——?”
“Not a bit of it!” Eveleen flashed back at him. “We are not wild Irish, don’t you know—the tame kind. We were always taught to behave nicely and try to be English.”
“Mrs Ambrose would jest on her deathbed, I believe,” said her husband, rather uncomfortably.
“Absit omen!” Colonel Bayard looked quickly at Eveleen to see whether the words had hurt her, but she smiled back with twinkling eyes.
“Now you see what Ambrose is in private life—always talking about deathbeds and the poorhouse and cheerful things of that sort. There! I’ve forgotten again. The poorhouse is a solemn subject, and not to be mentioned in the same breath with a joke.”
She glanced with mock apology at her husband, but there was a touch of defiance in the tone, and Colonel Bayard hastened to smooth matters over. “Well, ma’am, I have forgot what it was I said—though I’m sure you remember it—but you’ll oblige me by considering it unsaid. I’ll swear Sir Harry Lennox is the greatest hero since Achilles if that will please you—provided he keeps away from Khemistan.”
“Ah, but why?” with poignant reproach. “If he comes, he’ll be bringing Brian with him—my brother.”
“My dear, what nonsense are you talking?” interjected her husband. She drew back a little.
“It was nonsense, of course. Why would he come at all? But if he did come—why, Sir Harry loves his Irishmen, as everybody knows.”