had been cleared away.
Rhoda welcomed him into a room that seemed to do duty as workshop, sitting-room, and kitchen combined, and to be wonderfully clean and comfortable at the same time.
“I’m having a picnic meal,” she announced. “There’s caviar in that jar at your elbow. Begin on that brown bread-and-butter while I cut some more. Find yourself a cup; the teapot is behind you. Now tell me about hundreds of things.”
She made no other allusion to food, but talked amusingly and made her visitor talk amusingly too. At the same time she cut the bread-and-butter with a masterly skill and produced red pepper and sliced lemon, where so many women would merely have produced reasons and regrets for not having any. Cushat-Prinkly found that he was enjoying an excellent tea without having to answer as many questions about it as a Minister for Agriculture might be called on to reply to during an outbreak of cattle plague.
“And now tell me why you have come to see me,” said Rhoda suddenly. “You arouse not merely my curiosity but my business instincts. I hope you’ve come about hats. I heard that you had come into a legacy the other day, and, of course, it struck me that it would be a beautiful and desirable thing for you to celebrate the event by buying brilliantly expensive hats for all your sisters. They may not have said anything about it, but I feel sure the same idea has occurred to them. Of course, with Goodwood on us, I am rather rushed just now, but in my business we’re accustomed to that; we live in a series of rushes—like the infant Moses.”
“I didn’t come about hats,” said her visitor. “In fact, I don’t think I really came about anything. I was passing and I just thought I’d look in and see you. Since I’ve been sitting talking to you, however, a rather important idea has occurred to me. If you’ll forget Goodwood for a moment and listen to me, I’ll tell you what it is.”
Some forty minutes later James Cushat-Prinkly returned to the bosom of his family, bearing an important piece of news.
“I’m engaged to be married,” he announced.
A rapturous outbreak of congratulation and self-applause broke out.
“Ah, we knew! We saw it coming! We foretold it weeks ago!”
“I’ll bet you didn’t,” said Cushat-Prinkly. “If anyone had told me at lunchtime today that I was going to ask Rhoda Ellam to marry me and that she was going to accept me I would have laughed at the idea.”
The romantic suddenness of the affair in some measure compensated James’s womenfolk for the ruthless negation of all their patient effort and skilled diplomacy. It was rather trying to have to deflect their enthusiasm at a moment’s notice from Joan Sebastable to Rhoda Ellam; but, after all, it was James’s wife who was in question, and his tastes had some claim to be considered.
On a September afternoon of the same year, after the honeymoon in Minorca had ended, Cushat-Prinkly came into the drawing-room of his new house in Granchester Square. Rhoda was seated at a low table, behind a service of dainty porcelain and gleaming silver. There was a pleasant tinkling note in her voice as she handed him a cup.
“You like it weaker than that, don’t you? Shall I put some more hot water to it? No?”
A Bread and Butter Miss
“Starling Chatter and Oakhill have both dropped back in the betting,” said Bertie van Tahn, throwing the morning paper across the breakfast table.
“That leaves Nursery Tea practically favourite,” said Odo Finsberry.
“Nursery Tea and Pipeclay are at the top of the betting at present,” said Bertie, “but that French horse, Le Five O’Clock, seems to be fancied as much as anything. Then there is Whitebait, and the Polish horse with a name like someone trying to stifle a sneeze in church; they both seem to have a lot of support.”
“It’s the most open Derby there’s been for years,” said Odo.
“It’s simply no good trying to pick the winner on form,” said Bertie; “one must just trust to luck and inspiration.”
“The question is whether to trust to one’s own inspiration, or somebody else’s. Sporting Swank gives Count Palatine to win, and Le Five O’Clock for a place.”
“Count Palatine—that adds another to our list of perplexities. Good morning, Sir Lulworth; have you a fancy for the Derby by any chance?”
“I don’t usually take much interest in turf matters,” said Sir Lulworth, who had just made his appearance, “but I always like to have a bet on the Guineas and the Derby. This year, I confess, it’s rather difficult to pick out anything that seems markedly better than anything else. What do you think of Snow Bunting?”
“Snow Bunting?” said Odo, with a groan, “there’s another of them. Surely, Snow Bunting has no earthly chance?”
“My housekeeper’s nephew, who is a shoeing-smith in the mounted section of the Church Lads’ Brigade, and an authority on horseflesh, expects him to be among the first three.”
“The nephews of housekeepers are invariably optimists,” said Bertie; “it’s a kind of natural reaction against the professional pessimism of their aunts.”
“We don’t seem to get much further in our search for the probable winner,” said Mrs. de Claux; “the more I listen to you experts the more hopelessly befogged I get.”
“It’s all very well to blame us,” said Bertie to his hostess; “you haven’t produced anything in the way of an inspiration.”
“My inspiration consisted in asking you down for Derby week,” retorted Mrs. de Claux; “I thought you and Odo between you might throw some light on the question of the moment.”
Further recriminations were cut short by the arrival of Lola Pevensey, who floated into the room with an air of gracious apology.
“So sorry to be so late,” she observed, making a rapid tour of inspection of the breakfast dishes.
“Did you have a good night?” asked her hostess with perfunctory solicitude.
“Quite, thank you,” said Lola; “I dreamt a most remarkable dream.”
A flutter, indicative of
