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They had the drawing-room to themselves to no one, the order had gone forth, was her ladyship at home that drawing-room of Lady Auriol which Lackaday regarded as the most exquisite room in the world. It had comfort of soft chairs and bright fire and the smell of tea and cigarettes; but it also had the style, to him so precious, with which his fancy invested her.
An she come to harm in a Christian court, by Heaven, somebody'll answer me for't!" "Lackaday! Hoighty-toighty, Pierre! How you stamp! The black-eyed monkey hath been named maid of honour to Queen Catherine! How much better could we have done for her?" "Maid of honour to the lonely queen?" says Radisson. "That is well!"
Lionel stood amazed at the man's easy confidence and supreme assurance of how his master must acquit himself. "You... you have no fear, Nicholas...." He did not add of what. But the servant understood, and his grin grew broader still. "Fear? Lackaday! I bain't afeeard for Sir Oliver, and doan't ee be afeeard.
"There'll be champagne for dinner and I'm coming down," she cried and fled like a doe to the house. At the threshold of the drawing-room she turned. "Does Cousin Auriol know?" "Nobody knows," I said. She shouted: "Good egg!" and disappeared. I turned to the frowning and embarrassed Lackaday. "Your modesty doesn't appreciate the pleasure that news will give all those dear people.
Lackaday was silent and preoccupied during the run to London. At the terminus we parted. I asked him to dinner at my club. He hesitated for a moment, then declined on the plea of military business. I did not see him or the Verity-Stewarts or Lady Auriol till after the Armistice. Like Ancient Gaul, time is nowadays divided into three parts, before, during and after the war.
"I'm a woman of business," she told Lackaday and myself, "not a ministering angel with open-worked stockings and a Red Cross of rubies dangling in front of me. Most of the day I sit in a beastly office and work at potatoes and beef and army-forms. I can't nurse, though I daresay I could if I tried; but I hate amateurs. No amateurs in my show, I assure you. For my job I flatter myself I'm trained.
The comparison filled him less with consolation than with despair. The actor, mocking the octopus below, had calmly stepped from one rock pinnacle to another. He himself, Andrew Lackaday, in the depths, felt the irresistible grip of the horror twining round his middle.
He still, she urged, had friends in high places, even in the dreadful Government at which he railed. "Never heard of the man," he growled. "Lackaday Lackaday " he shook his white head. "Who was his father?" She confessed that she didn't know. He was alone in the world. He had sprung from Nowhere. The old Earl refused to take any interest in him. Such fellows always fell on their feet.
Besides, you've so often given me your kind sympathy, that, as a lonely man, I've ventured to trespass on it once more." "My dear Lackaday, you know that I value your friendship," said I, not wishing to be outdone in courteous phrase, "and that my services are entirely at your disposal." "I had better tell you in a few words what has happened," said he. He told me.
"My dear Evadne," said I. "I happen to know that Colonel Lackaday is thirty-eight." Thirteen shrugged its slim shoulders. "It's all the same," it said. We went to the net-covered wall of ripe and beauteous temptation, trampling over Jenkins's beds of I know not what, and ate forbidden fruit. At least Evadne did, until, son of Adam, I fell. "Do have a bite. It's lovely.
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