Part 32 (1/2)
”Try a drink, then.”
”I've just had one.”
”Drinking alone? That's a bad sign. What are you so blue about?”
”I'm wondering,” said Stanley, ”how a man can ever be fool enough to fall in love, or get married.”
”Oh,” said the Lieutenant, ”so she's refused you, eh?”
”Who?”
”Belle Fitzgerald.”
”Yes,” replied the Secretary, shortly.
The Lieutenant thrust his hands deep into his trousers pockets and paced the room in silence, whistling softly to himself. Finally he remarked:
”Well, I'm sorry, old chap, but I've been more lucky.”
”Oh,” said the Secretary. ”Lady Isabelle, I suppose.”
Kingland nodded.
”Does mamma approve?” inquired Stanley.
The young officer shrugged his shoulders.
”I'm going to postpone entering into that matter,” he said, ”till after the ceremony.”
”Oh,” said the Secretary shortly. ”An elopement. Well, I don't know that I can conscientiously offer my congratulations--to Lady Isabelle, at least, but I dare say you'll find it worth while.”
”You needn't be so nasty, just because you've been disappointed.”
”Oh, it isn't that; but, as you say, I've no reason to express an opinion. It isn't the first time a young man's eloped with a lady of means.”
”Well,” snapped the Lieutenant in reply, ”it's a shade above eloping with somebody else's wife who happens to have a large bank account.”
Stanley sprang to his feet.
”If that cad of a Darcy,” he cried, ”has been saying----”
”Oh, you needn't a.s.sume the high moral role,” said Kingsland. ”I've just had the story first hand from him.”
”It isn't the first time he's told it to-night,” snapped the Secretary.
”What! You don't mean to the fair Belle?”
Stanley nodded, and Kingsland threw himself on the sofa in a paroxysm of laughter.
”But how did you come to see Darcy?” demanded the young diplomat, ignoring his friend's ill-timed merriment. ”I ordered him out of the house.”