“What a shame, now! If ’tis your arm that’s hurting you, don’t stand on ceremony, but get to bed. We can manage alone somehow.” The Earl raised his eyebrows, positively petrified. How dared the baggage mock the other thus, however much her friend? It could be nothing but her obsession about himself and his fatal attraction which emboldened her so to range herself, as it were, under the protection of his guns. Lady Chesterfield, her cheek aglow, rose to her feet. “This is becoming insufferable,” she began; and stopped, biting her lip. “You’ve forgotten your sling,” said Moll. “You’ve forgotten _yourself_,” said Kate disdainfully; and, with a shrug, resumed her seat. “But perhaps that is an advantage.” Mrs. Davis jumped up, with a ringing laugh. “What a company of crosspatches!” she cried. “The sandwich doesn’t seem to be a success. You come in the middle, Phil, and be the duck.” He grinned, but in a half-scared way. She had never yet ventured so far as to call him by his Christian name. He was feeling suddenly rather helpless--taken off his feet by the excess of the storm he had himself invited. When she ran to him and pulled at his coat, he resisted feebly. “Come and be the duck.” She chirped with laughter. “What a face to grin through a horse collar! O! look intelligent!” She shook him. “What shall we do--play games? Hot cockles, say, or----” she released him, and stood with deliberating finger on lip. “No, that would never do. Dumb-crambo--what do you say to that?” She glanced with comical plaintiveness from one mute figure to the other. “But you don’t look very playful, either of you. I wish Kit was here. You’d never be able to resist Kit, whatever you do me.” Chesterfield cleared his throat, fingering the cravat at it. “Is Kit such a wag?” said he. “Just,” was the answer. “And good at games?” “There was never such a one for make-believe.” “A happy disposition. But then, as to happiness--Kit isn’t married, of course.” Her ladyship, in an uncontrollable spasm, whisked about. “Kit, Mrs. Davis, has never suffered that most cruel of disillusionments.” And then they went at it alternately, each pointedly addressing _not_ the other, and tossing the hypothetical Kit between them, as if that epicene individual were the most familiar of shuttlecocks. “Kit is to be congratulated, Mrs. Davis,” said his lordship. “Kit has chosen the better course, Mrs. Davis,” said her ladyship. “Matrimony is the shadow of felicity, Mrs. Davis, for which men, like the dog in the fable, drop the substance.” “Men, you see, are beasts, Mrs. Davis; and not only beasts, but silly beasts.” “They don’t know when they are well off, Mrs. Davis.” “But women do, Mrs. Davis, when men insist on remaining single.” “A pity for them, then, Mrs. Davis, that they don’t insist on remaining single too.” “A great pity, Mrs. Davis; but women are in everything self-sacrificing.” “They know how to take consolation for their injuries, Mrs. Davis.”