“But you might increase their number,” returned Mrs. March spiritedly, “by marrying a girl and then atoning for the wrong you had done her in so marrying her by dying at once.”
“By Jove, do you know, I had never thought of that,” Allyne replied, adding after a moment of serious consideration, “but, suppose I didn’t die, you know? Deucedly uncertain thing, dying. Suicide, of course, is out of the question in my case, as I am far too unselfish to seek my own happiness at the frightful cost of depriving the world of my presence. And English women are so fastidious that I might find it difficult to persuade my wife to shoot—Look, look, Fair—Mrs. Fair is ill.”
While he was rattling along with his stream of nonsense Mrs. Fair, who was standing a little behind the rest, swayed forward and would have fallen had not Allyne’s exclamation called attention to her.
“Quick, she is faint!” cried Lady Poynter sympathetically.
But Mrs. Fair almost at once recovered herself, and said: “Pray, don’t mind. I have these foolish turns at times. They amount to nothing. You were saying, Mr. Allyne, that——”
“Allyne was saying, my dear,” hastily put in Fair to head off Allyne, “Allyne was saying that English women are so narrow in their views that they hesitate to make the idiots of themselves that Englishmen are ever so ready to do.”
“I was saying nothing of the sort,” retorted Allyne, in spite of a kick surreptitiously administered to him by Travers. “On the contrary, I——”
“My lady is served,” gravely announced Baxter, pulling aside the portières and awaiting the forming procession which, to judge from his solemn bearing, might have been the funeral cortège of a great personage.
“Come, friends,” smiled Mrs. Fair. “Mrs. March, I will be merciful and ask Mr. Travers to take you down. Sir Nelson, your arm.”
Fair led the way with Lady Poynter, Sir Nelson with his hostess brought up the rear, while Allyne walked in solitary, philosophical mood, much as he chose.