“Here you are,” she said, holding out a curl. “Bit of my extra. Go on now. Get it up.”
Danby caught it, and laughed. He was shaking with excitement.
“You—you inspire me,” he said. “You—fill me with new life. How can I stick it on? I know. Mustard!”
He rushed to the cold-cream pot, put his fingers into it, rubbed the thick yellow stuff on his upper lip, and stuck on the curl. Then he seized his hat, cocked it on at an angle of forty-five, buttoned up his coat, and strutted about like an irascible bantam cock.
“Armay? Armay? My dear lady, we have no Armay! It was taken over by a lawyer as a hobby. It’s a joke, a bad joke, at which nobody laughs. When you ask about the Armay you go back to the days of my youth, when I was in the 45th—a deuce of a feller too, I give you my word. We officers of Her Majesty’s British Armay were fine fellows, handsome dorgs, my dear lady; and I think I may say I am the last of the fruitay old barkers who could make love as well as they could fight. Oh, l’amour, l’amour! Do you kiss?”
There was in this rapidly touched-in sketch something of portraiture which was not spoilt by the banality of the patter. It was, perhaps, the portrait of the stage-major, but it was the portrait of a man who might conceivably have lived even for the strong note of caricature.
Fanny danced with delight, and clapped her hands until they smarted.
“Hot stuff, Mr. Danby; very hot stuff!”
“No; it’s rotten. Hopeless. You’d better give me up!” Danby, still afraid to believe in himself, took off the impromptu moustache and unbuttoned his coat.
“Give you up! I’ll see you further. Now, then. The woman turn. Quick. You were a scream as a woman, Mr. Danby dear.”