The Toys of Peace | Page 7

present house and going to Lower Seymour Street.' 'I
dare say she will, if she stays there long enough,' I said. Ada didn't see
it for about three minutes, and then she was positively uncivil. No, I am
certain I didn't leave Louise there."
"If you could manage to remember where you DID leave her, it would
be more to the point than these negative assurances," said Lady
Beanford; "so far, all we know is that she is not at the Carrywoods', or
Ada Spelvexit's, or Westminster Abbey."
"That narrows the search down a bit," said Jane hopefully; "I rather
fancy she must have been with me when I went to Mornay's. I know I
went to Mornay's, because I remember meeting that delightful Malcolm
What's-his-name there--you know whom I mean. That's the great
advantage of people having unusual first names, you needn't try and
remember what their other name is. Of course I know one or two other
Malcolms, but none that could possibly be described as delightful. He
gave me two tickets for the Happy Sunday Evenings in Sloane Square.
I've probably left them at Mornay's, but still it was awfully kind of him
to give them to me."

"Do you think you left Louise there?"
"I might telephone and ask. Oh, Robert, before you clear the tea- things
away I wish you'd ring up Mornay's, in Regent Street, and ask if I left
two theatre tickets and one niece in their shop this afternoon."
"A niece, ma'am?" asked the footman.
"Yes, Miss Louise didn't come home with me, and I'm not sure where I
left her."
"Miss Louise has been upstairs all the afternoon, ma'am, reading to the
second kitchenmaid, who has the neuralgia. I took up tea to Miss
Louise at a quarter to five o'clock, ma'am."
"Of course, how silly of me. I remember now, I asked her to read the
Faerie Queene to poor Emma, to try to send her to sleep. I always get
some one to read the Faerie Queene to me when I have neuralgia, and it
usually sends me to sleep. Louise doesn't seem to have been successful,
but one can't say she hasn't tried. I expect after the first hour or so the
kitchenmaid would rather have been left alone with her neuralgia, but
of course Louise wouldn't leave off till some one told her to. Anyhow,
you can ring up Mornay's, Robert, and ask whether I left two theatre
tickets there. Except for your silk, Susan, those seem to be the only
things I've forgotten this afternoon. Quite wonderful for me."

TEA

James Cushat-Prinkly was a young man who had always had a settled
conviction that one of these days he would marry; up to the age of
thirty-four he had done nothing to justify that conviction. He liked and
admired a great many women collectively and dispassionately without
singling out one for especial matrimonial consideration, just as one
might admire the Alps without feeling that one wanted any particular
peak as one's own private property. His lack of initiative in this matter
aroused a certain amount of impatience among the
sentimentally-minded women-folk of his home circle; his mother, his
sisters, an aunt-in-residence, and two or three intimate matronly friends
regarded his dilatory approach to the married state with a disapproval
that was far from being inarticulate. His most innocent flirtations were
watched with the straining eagerness which a group of unexercised
terriers concentrates on the slightest movements of a human being who

may be reasonably considered likely to take them for a walk. No
decent- souled mortal can long resist the pleading of several pairs of
walk- beseeching dog-eyes; James Cushat-Prinkly was not sufficiently
obstinate or indifferent to home influences to disregard the obviously
expressed wish of his family that he should become enamoured of
some nice marriageable girl, and when his Uncle Jules departed this life
and bequeathed him a comfortable little legacy it really seemed the
correct thing to do to set about discovering some one to share it with
him. The process of discovery was carried on more by the force of
suggestion and the weight of public opinion than by any initiative of his
own; a clear working majority of his female relatives and the aforesaid
matronly friends had pitched on Joan Sebastable as the most suitable
young woman in his range of acquaintance to whom he might propose
marriage, and James became gradually accustomed to the idea that he
and Joan would go together through the prescribed stages of
congratulations, present-receiving, Norwegian or Mediterranean hotels,
and eventual domesticity. It was necessary, however to ask the lady
what she thought about the matter; the family had so far conducted and
directed the flirtation with ability and discretion, but the actual proposal
would have