She also possessed what, we are informed--we are children in
these matters ourselves--is known as the R. S. V. P. eye. This eye had
met Roland's one evening, as he chumped his chop, and before he knew
what he was doing he had remarked that it had been a fine day.
From that wonderful moment matters had developed at an incredible
speed. Roland had a nice sense of the social proprieties, and he could
not bring himself to ignore a girl with whom he had once exchanged easy
conversation about the weather. Whenever she came to lay his table, he
felt bound to say something. Not being an experienced gagger, he found
it more and more difficult each evening to hit on something bright,
until finally, from sheer lack of inspiration, he kissed her.
If matters had progressed rapidly before, they went like lightning
then. It was as if he had touched a spring or pressed a button, setting
vast machinery in motion. Even as he reeled back stunned at his
audacity, the room became suddenly full of Coppins of every variety
known to science. Through a mist he was aware of Mrs. Coppin crying in
a corner, of Mr. Coppin drinking his health in the remains of sparkling
limado, of Brothers Frank and Percy, one on each side trying to borrow
simultaneously half-crowns, and of Muriel, flushed but demure, making
bread-pellets and throwing them in an abstracted way, one by one, at
the Coppin cat, which had wandered in on the chance of fish.
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