“Surely he is joking,” she said. “Simeon is making game of you.”
“Simeon!” he echoed, mimicking her incredulous tone.
“A joke would be no stranger to him than a horse,” she said, smiling.
They had reached the entrance, and Deena stood shaking with suppressed laughter. “Fancy! Simeon!” she repeated.
“And why not Simeon, pray?” asked Stephen, slightly nettled.
A vision of Simeon with his gold-rimmed spectacles and stooped figure mounted on horseback in the midst of a party of Indians, whirling his bolas over his head and shouting, presented itself to Deena’s imagination. The carriage was waiting, and, obeying Mrs. Star’s motion to get in first, Simeon Ponsonby’s wife fell back on the seat and laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks.
Outside, Stephen was entreating to be allowed to visit her the next morning.
“I haven’t half finished my story, Mrs. Ponsonby,” he protested.
And Deena managed to steady her voice and invite him to lunch the next day.