Protect my character, dear, if it's all over Simla by to-morrow and
then he bobbed forward in the middle of this insanity I firmly
believe the man's demented and kissed me.'
'Morals above reproach,' purred Mrs. Mallowe.
'So they were so they are! It was the most absurd kiss. I don't
believe he'd ever kissed a woman in his life before. I threw my
head back, and it was a sort of slidy, pecking dab, just on the end
of the chin here.' Mrs. Hauksbee tapped her masculine little chin
with her fan. 'Then, of course, I was furiously angry, and told him
that he was no gentleman, and I was sorry I'd ever met him, and so
on. He was crushed so easily then I couldn't be very angry. Then I
came away straight to you.'
'Was this before or after supper?'
'Oh! before oceans before. Isn't it perfectly disgusting?'
'Let me think. I withhold judgment till tomorrow. Morning brings
counsel.'
But morning brought only a servant with a dainty bouquet of
Annandale roses for Mrs. Hauksbee to wear at the dance at
Viceregal Lodge that night.
'He doesn't seem to be very penitent,' said Mrs. Mallowe. 'What's
the billet-doux in the centre?'
Mrs. Hauksbee opened the neatly-folded note, another
accomplishment that she had taught Otis, read it, and groaned
tragically.
'Last wreck of a feeble intellect! Poetry! Is it his own, do you
think? Oh, that I ever built my hopes on such a maudlin idiot!'
'No.
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