His Lordship's Leopard Part 27

"Nonsense!" she cried. "No heel-taps. I'm no end thirsty."

"So am I," replied his Lords.h.i.+p, draining his gla.s.s contentedly, and watching her fill it up again.

"What are you so pensive about?" she demanded. "There's another bottle."

He had been thinking that his sister always confined him to two gla.s.ses, but he didn't say so, and under her skilful lead he was soon describing to her a Cowes regatta he had once seen, in which she professed to be amazingly interested.

"I tell you what it is," she remarked a little later on. "If I had a gorgeous palace like yours I'd have no end of a good time."

"Ah," said the Bishop, who was helping her to unfasten the second bottle of champagne, "I never thought of it in that light."

"No," returned his fair companion, "I suppose not. But you're losing lots of fun in life, and it does seem a shame, when you would so enjoy it."

"It does," said the Bishop, sampling the fresh bottle. "But then, you see, there's my sister, Miss Matilda--"

"Rats!"

"Excuse me, I didn't catch your meaning."

"Never mind my meaning. We're talking about your sister. She's a most estimable woman, my dear Bish-- Oh, pshaw! I can't always call you by your t.i.tle."

"Call me Josephus," he said.

"No, I couldn't call you that, either. It's too dreadful. I'll call you Joe."

The Bishop beamed with joy.

"And I," he faltered, "may I call you Violet?"

"No," she said, "I don't think it's proper in a man of your position."

"But if you call me--Joe--"

"Well!" she cried, laughing, "we'll make a compromise. Suppose you call me 'the Leopard'?"

"To be sure," he said. "Mrs. Mackintosh spoke of you as that--er--quadruped. But what does it mean?"

"You want to know a great deal too much for a man of your age. It's an animal that is more than once mentioned in Scripture, and that ought to be sufficient for your purposes. So we'll have it understood that his Lords.h.i.+p's Leopard is quite at his Lords.h.i.+p's service, if his Lords.h.i.+p doesn't mind."

"Mind!" he cried ecstatically, eyeing the other side of the table. But Miss Violet intended to have the board between them.

"Take another gla.s.s of champagne, and keep quiet," she said sternly.

"We're talking about your estimable but impossible sister. My dear Joe, you'll never have any sport till you've got rid of her."

"But how shall I get rid of her?" he asked despondently. Even champagne was not proof against the depression induced by such an appalling thought.

"Oh, send her to a course of mud-baths or a water-cure!"

"I might try it--if--if you'd help me--if you'd take her place at the palace. I mean--"

"Josephus!" she called, in such an exact imitation of his sister's tone that it made him sit right up. "Josephus! don't say another word! I know what you mean--and you're an old dear--and I'm not going to let you make a fool of yourself. You're aged enough to be my father, and if your son had had his way you would have been my father-in-law. I want to have a good time, and I want you to have a good time; but that isn't the proper manner in which to set about it. No, you send the old lady packing, for the good of her health, and Mrs. Mackintosh and I'll help you and Cecil entertain, and we'll have a dance, and a marquee, and lots of punch. I dare say you've never been to a dance in your life," she rattled on, not giving him a chance to blunder out excuses.

"I'm not such an old fogey as you think me," he began. "But I want to say--er--Miss--Leopard--"

"Oh, no, you don't," she interrupted. "You want to forget what you've said, and so do I. We must talk about something else. What were you saying about a dance?"

"No, no, not a dance," he replied, resigning himself to his fate. "But once," lowering his voice, "not long ago either, when I was in town, I--I'm sure you won't believe it-- I went to a theatre." This last triumphantly.

"Oh, you sad dog!" she cried. "You didn't!"

He nodded his head affirmatively.

"And what was the piece?"

"'The Sign of the Cross.'"

"What, that gruesome show, where every one's slaughtered or chewed up by lions! You ought to have gone to the Empire."

"It wasn't far from Leicester Square," he said deprecatingly.

"Not near enough to be very wicked," she retorted. "But, say, I'll tell you something if you'll promise never, never to reveal it."

"The word of a bishop--" he began.

"Oh, nonsense! You're not a bishop at present, you're just Joe. Well, here it is: I'm an actress!"

"You--are--an--actress!"

"Fact! I'm quite harmless. If you keep six feet from me there's not the slightest danger of contamination."

Then, seeing his look of astonished bewilderment, she burst into a peal of ringing laughter, crying:

"Why, to look at you, one would think I'd told you that I was a Gorgon!"

"No, no," he said, stammering. "I--I'm delighted. I always really wanted to meet an actress--but--er--I hardly know what to say--"

"Don't say anything. Just be your dear unsophisticated self, or you'll be a bore. Cecil didn't dare tell you who I was, for fear you'd be shocked. Come on, let's go up on deck. It's close down here."

"It is," admitted his Lords.h.i.+p, whose temperature had risen with his consumption of champagne, and added:

"We should be well out by this time, for we seem to have been going at great speed."

"Isn't it glorious!" she cried. "I wonder what they're doing at Blanford. I guess your telegram was an eye-opener."

"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the Bishop, fis.h.i.+ng a form out of his pocket.

"I forgot to send it."

"What, do you mean to say they don't know what's become of us?"