Part 9 (1/2)
”No, dear; don't interrupt. But he suggests that I should send the proposed list of my guests to him for purposes of revision and addition.
Did you ever hear anything like that?”
Dodo read on, and gave a shrill scream.
”And that's not all!” she shouted. ”He suggests that I should send him the choice of three dates about the middle of July and he will then inform me in due course which will be the most convenient. Is the man mad? There aren't three dates about the middle of July, and if there were I wouldn't send him them.”
”What are you going to say?” asked Jack.
”I shall say that I happen to have no vacant dates about the middle of July, but that I am giving a ball on the sixteenth and that I shall be delighted to ask his Indian friend, who may come to dinner first if I can find room for him. About my list of guests I shall say that I should no more dream of sending it to him for revision and addition than I should send it to my scullery-maid, and that if my friends aren't good enough for a Maharajah, he may go and dance with his own. My guests to be revised by Lord Cookham! Additions to be made by him! Isn't he quite priceless?”
”Completely. Mind you don't ask him.”
”Certainly I shan't. The soup gets cold when Cookham comes to dine.
Also, as Prince Albert says, when he comes in at the door gaiety flies out of the window.”
Jack took up the morning paper.
”The only news seems to be that he and the Princess have come up to town,” he observed. ”They are to stay with your Daddy a few days and then their address will be at the Ritz.”
”Daddy will love that,” said Dodo, recovering her geniality. ”Jam for Daddy. They'll like it too, because it will save a few more days of hotel-bills. What a happy family!”
Jack turned back on to the middle page of the _Times_. He usually began rather further on where there were cricket matches and short paragraphs, in order to reawaken his interest in the affairs of the day.
”Hullo!” he said. ”What a horrible thing!”
Dodo had not noticed that he had left the cricket-page.
”Has Nottinghams.h.i.+re got out leg before?” she asked vaguely.
”No. But the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife have been murdered at Serajevo.”
Dodo rapidly considered whether this made any difference to her, and decided that it did not matter as much as the letter she was reading.
”I don't think I ever heard of him,” she said. ”And where's Serajevo?”
”In Servia or one of those places,” said Jack. ”The Archduke was the heir to the Austrian throne.”
Dodo put down her letter.
”Oh, poor man!” she said. ”How horrid to be killed, if you were going to be an Emperor! What makes you frown, Jack? Did you know him?”
”No. But there is always trouble in those states. Some day the trouble will spread.”
Dodo gathered up her letters.
”Trouble will now spread for Baron Cookham,” she remarked. ”I think I shall telephone to him. He hates being telephoned to like a common person.”
”May I listen?” asked Jack.
”Do, darling, and suggest insults in a low voice.”