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Lord Oldfield and Lord Doraine seem ready to do anything for him. Lord Oldfield offered to hunt about and get him just the right stables for his house in Belgrave Square; he knew of some splendid ones, he said, that were going a great bargain, on a freehold that belongs to his sister's husband.
At last he asked me to play Patience with him; so I said that was a game one played by oneself, and he said he knew quite a new one which he was sure I would like to learn; but I did not particularly want to just then. Lady Doraine was showing Mr. Wertz her new one at the other side of the hall.
The guns had got back, and came straggling in one by one, as they dressed, quickly or slowly; and Lord Doraine had such a lovely velvet suit on, and he said such nice things to me; and Lord Valmond sat at the other side, and seemed more ill-tempered than ever. I can't think what is the matter with him.
It is not at all a difficult game, Mamma, and some of the people were so lucky turning up "naturels," but we lost in spite of them at our side of the table, and Lord Doraine said at last, that it was because we Lord Valmond and I were sitting together. Valmond looked angry, but he chaffed back.
At the outbreak of the Great War he was given command of the Doraine, relieving a younger man for more drastic duty in the North Sea. He was an Englishman, and his name, Weatherby Trigger, may be quite readily located on the list of retired naval officers in the British Admiralty offices if one cares to go to the trouble to look it up.
Gradually the prow of the Doraine swung around and pointed straight for the cleft in the shore. The ship, two miles out, had responded to the insidious pressure of the current and was being drawn toward the rocks, at first so slowly that there was scarcely a ripple off her bows; then, as she lumbered onward, she began to turn over the water as a ploughshare turns over the land.
He realized the vital necessity for checking the Doraine in her flight before she accomplished the miracle of passing unhindered through the channel and out into the open sea beyond. The swiftness of the current indicated plainly enough that this natural canal was of no great length. The ship slid on between the tree lined banks.
So she did, and taught him Patience in the hall after lunch; and Mrs. Pike went and wanted to learn it too, but Lady Doraine who was lovely to her somehow did not make much room on the sofa, so she had to go and sit somewhere else. Half the people were playing "Bridge," and the rest were very comfortable, and smoking cigarettes, of course; so Mrs. Pike did too.
Presently lights appeared on board the Doraine, one here, one there, then others in twos and threes, some of them stationary, others moving slowly from place to place. The life-boats crept closer, still closer. Then, out from the silent hulk, came the voice of man. It was the voice of the First Officer, hoarse and unrecognizable, but sharp with authority.
And one has a grown-up son and daughter, and she danced all the time with Dolly Tenterdown, who was her son's fag at Eton, Lord Doraine told me. Isn't it odd? And another was the lady that Sir Charles Helmsford was with on the promenade at Nice, when you would not let me bow to him, do you remember? And she is as old as the other!
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