"Will--you--lunch--Christmas Day----" I pointed out. "It doesn't say we shall be there to receive him."
"I don't understand it," she said rather wearily. I have since honourably resolved not to be guilty of facetiousness when we are married, but at the moment I was rather pleased with my little stratagem.
"I'm arranging for some one to be there to meet him," I said.
"A young woman named Sylvia Roden," I answered.
And even then her appreciation of my diplomacy was grudging.
"Raise the light, my page! that I may see her-- Thou art come at last, then, haughty Queen? Long I've waited, long I've fought my fever; Late thou comest, cruel hast thou been."
"Blame me not, poor sufferer! that I tarried; Bound I was, I could not break the band. Chide not with the past, but feel the present! I am here--we meet--I hold thy hand."
I had intended to write no more, but as we left the Consulate to-day after our wedding, a cable was handed me by my smiling Italian valet.
"Paddy Culling for a bob!" I said, as I opened it and prepared for some whimsical message of congratulation.
I was wrong. The cable was my reply from Yokohama.
"No offence intended," it ran. "Delighted lunch as suggested.--SERAPH."
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
+-----------------------------------------------------------+ | Typographical errors corrected in text: | | | | Page 4: repellant replaced with repellent | | Page 52: "ths same advice" replaced with | | "the same advice" | | Page 90: been been replaced with been | | Page 95: torso replaced with trio | | Page 119: "because its unique" replaced with | | "because it's unique" | | Page 125: femineity replaced with femininity | | Page 127: dispise replaced with despise | | Page 233: Fraülein replaced with Fräulein | | | | Page 66: A sackbut is a trombone from the Renaissance | | and Baroque eras. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------+