"Well, you are not to think anything so unpleasant or personal. I'm utterly wretched; and if you don't believe it I won't eat a mouthful." "I'm sure," he returned, "that your husband would be much put out if he knew you contemplated doing anything so foolish." "Do you know," she said, "that I'm beginning to have serious doubts that I ever had a husband? Do you think he's a myth, and that you and I will have to go through life together in an endless pursuit of what doesn't exist?" "Good Lord, I hope not!" he exclaimed. "That is very uncomplimentary to me," she retorted. "In the face of that remark," he replied, pushing back his chair, "I am silent." "Do you know," said his companion after a moment, as she folded her napkin, "that the keen sense of humour with which we Americans are endowed saves a large percentage of us from going mad or committing suicide?" "Are you thinking of doing either?" he asked anxiously. "I am thinking," she replied, "that we have had two exceedingly amusing days, and I am almost sorry they are over." "Don't you want to find your husband?" he exclaimed. "Of course I do; but it has been a sort of breathing-space before settling down to the seriousness of married life, and that elephant episode was funny. I think it was worth two days of any husband; don't you?" "I don't know," returned the Consul, somewhat ruefully. "I'd just as lief that Scarsdale had had the beast." "Oh, I wouldn't!" she cried. "He would have spoiled all the fun. He'd have done some stupid, rational thing. Donated it to the 'Zoo' in London, I should think; wasted the elephant, in fact. It took the spirit of American humour to play your colossal, practical joke. I wonder if it has arrived at the Court yet. I can fancy it sticking its head, trunk and all, through the great window in Lady Melton's dining-room." "She called me a consular person," remarked that official stiffly. "Hence the elephant," laughed his fair companion. "Cause and effect. But, joking apart, there is a pitiful side to our adventure. When I think of those two matter-of-fact, serious British things, your better half and my--my husband, and of what a miserable time they have been having, unrelieved by any spark of humour, it almost makes me cry." "Hold on!" cried Allingford, "You are just as bad as your great-aunt. She calls me a consular person, and you call my wife a British thing! I wish I had another elephant." "I beg your pardon, I do really," she replied. "I classed my husband in the same category. But don't you agree with me that it's sad? I'm sure your poor wife has cried her eyes out; and as for my husband, I doubt if he's eaten anything, and I'm certain he's worn his most unbecoming clothes." "You are wrong there," interrupted Allingford; "he packed all the worst specimens, and I rescued them at Salisbury. I tried them on yesterday, and there wasn't a suit I'd have had the face to wear in public."