"Well, Jamie, my boy, what is all this nonsense I hear about you and Mary Clibborn?"
Colonel Parsons started at the expected question, and stole a hurried look at his son. His wife noisily shook the dice-box and threw the dice on the board.
"Nine!" she said.
James turned to look at his uncle, noting a little contemptuously the change of his costume, and its extravagant juvenility.
"A lot of stuff and nonsense, isn't it?"
"D'you think so?" asked James, wearily. "We've been taking it very seriously."
"You're a set of old fogies down here. You want a man of the world to set things right."
"Ah, well, you're a man of the world, Uncle William," replied James, smiling.
The dice-box rattled obtrusively as Colonel Parsons and his wife played on with elaborate unconcern of the conversation.
"A gentleman doesn't jilt a girl when he's been engaged to her for five years."