________________________________________________
_ I did it--I who should have known better. I persuaded
Reginald to go to the McKillops' garden-party against his
will.
We all make mistakes occasionally.
"They know you're here, and they'll think it so funny if you
don't go. And I want particularly to be in with Mrs.
McKillop just now."
"I know, you want one of her smoke Persian kittens as a
prospective wife for Wumples--or a husband, is it?"
(Reginald has a magnificent scorn for details, other than
sartorial.) "And I am expected to undergo social martyrdom
to suit the connubial exigencies" -
"Reginald! It's nothing of the kind, only I'm sure Mrs.
McKillop Would be pleased if I brought you. Young men of
your brilliant attractions are rather at a premium at her
garden-parties."
"Should be at a premium in heaven," remarked Reginald
complacently.
"There will be very few of you there, if that is what you
mean. But seriously, there won't be any great strain upon
your powers of endurance; I promise you that you shan't have
to play croquet, or talk to the Archdeacon's wife, or do
anything that is likely to bring on physical prostration.
You can just wear your sweetest clothes and moderately
amiable expression, and eat chocolate-creams with the
appetite of a blase parrot. Nothing more is demanded of
you."
Reginald shut his eyes. "There will be the exhaustingly up-
to-date young women who will ask me if I have seen San Toy:
a less progressive grade who will yearn to hear about the
Diamond Jubilee--the historic event, not the horse. With a
little encouragement, they will inquire if I saw the Allies
march into Paris. Why are women so fond of raking up the
past? They're as bad as tailors, who invariably remember
what you owe them for a suit long after you've ceased to wear
it."
"I'll order lunch for one o'clock; that will give you two and
a half hours to dress in."
Reginald puckered his brow into a tortured frown, and I knew
that my point was gained. He was debating what tie would go
with which waistcoat.
Even then I had my misgivings.
* * *
During the drive to the McKillops' Reginald was possessed
with a great peace, which was not wholly to be accounted for
by the fact that he had inveigled his feet into shoes a size
too small for them. I misgave more than ever, and having
once launched Reginald on to the McKillops' lawn, I
established him near a seductive dish of marrons glaces, and
as far from the Archdeacon's wife as possible; as I drifted
away to a diplomatic distance I heard with painful
distinctness the eldest Mawkby girl asking him if he had seen
San Toy.
It must have been ten minutes later, not more, and I had been
having QUITE an enjoyable chat with my hostess, and had
promised to lend her The Eternal City and my recipe for
rabbit mayonnaise, and was just about to offer a kind home
for her third Persian kitten, when I perceived, out of the
corner of my eye, that Reginald was not where I had left him,
and that the marrons glaces were untasted. At the same
moment I became aware that old Colonel Mendoza was essaying
to tell his classic story of how he introduced golf into
India, and that Reginald was in dangerous proximity. There
are occasions when Reginald is caviare to the Colonel.
"When I was at Poona in '76" -
"My dear Colonel," purred Reginald, "fancy admitting such a
thing! Such a give-away for one's age! I wouldn't admit
being on this planet in '76." (Reginald in his wildest
lapses into veracity never admits to being more than twenty-
two.)
The Colonel went to the colour of a fig that has attained
great ripeness, and Reginald, ignoring my efforts to
intercept him, glided away to another part of the lawn. I
found him a few minutes later happily engaged in teaching the
youngest Rampage boy the approved theory of mixing absinthe,
within full earshot of his mother. Mrs. Rampage occupies a
prominent place in local Temperance movements.
As soon as I had broken up this unpromising tete-a-tete and
settled Reginald where he could watch the croquet players
losing their tempers, I wandered off to find my hostess and
renew the kitten negotiations at the point where they had
been interrupted. I did not succeed in running her down at
once, and eventually it was Mrs. McKillop who sought me out,
and her conversation was not of kittens.
"Your cousin is discussing Zaza with the Archdeacon's wife;
at least, he is discussing, she is ordering her carriage."
She spoke in the dry, staccato tone of one who repeats a
French exercise, and I knew that as far as Millie McKillop
was concerned, Wumples was devoted to a lifelong celibacy.
"If you don't mind," I said hurriedly, "I think we'd like our
carriage ordered too," and I made a forced march in the
direction of the croquet-ground.
I found everyone talking nervously and feverishly of the
weather and the war in South Africa, except Reginald, who was
reclining in a comfortable chair with the dreamy, far-away
look that a volcano might wear just after it had desolated
entire villages. The Archdeacon's wife was buttoning up her
gloves with a concentrated deliberation that was fearful to
behold. I shall have to treble my subscription to her
Cheerful Sunday Evenings Fund before I dare set foot in her
house again.
At that particular moment the croquet players finished their
game, which had been going on without a symptom of finality
during the whole afternoon. Why, I ask, should it have
stopped precisely when a counter-attraction was so necessary?
Everyone seemed to drift towards the area of disturbance, of
which the chairs of the Archdeacon's wife and Reginald formed
the storm-centre. Conversation flagged, and there settled
upon the company that expectant hush that precedes the dawn--
when your neighbours don't happen to keep poultry.
"What did the Caspian Sea?" asked Reginald, with appalling
suddenness.
There were symptoms of a stampede. The Archdeacon's wife
looked at me. Kipling or someone has described somewhere the
look a foundered camel gives when the caravan moves on and
leaves it to its fate. The peptonised reproach in the good
lady's eyes brought the passage vividly to my mind.
I played my last card.
"Reginald, it's getting late, and a sea-mist is coming on."
I knew that the elaborate curl over his right eyebrow was not
guaranteed to survive a sea-mist.
"Never, never again, will I take you to a garden-party.
Never . . . You behaved abominably . . . What did the Caspian
see?"
A shade of genuine regret for misused opportunities passed
over Reginald's face.
"After all," he said, "I believe an apricot tie would have
gone better with the lilac waistcoat." _
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