“Ah! Cunnie, Cunnie ...?” Mrs Montgomery murmured, laying the card down near a photograph of the Court-physician with a sigh: “Ah! Arthur Amos Cuncliffe Babcock ...?” she invoked his name dulcetly in full: and as though in telepathic response, there came a tap at the door, and the doctor himself looked in. He had been attending, it seemed, the young wife of the Comptroller of the Household at the extremity of the corridor; a creature, who, after two brief weeks of marriage, imagined herself to be in an interesting state: “_I believe baby’s coming!_” she would cry out every few hours. “Do I intrude?” he demanded, in his forceful, virile voice, that ladies knew and liked: “pray say so if I do.” “Does he intrude!” Mrs Montgomery flashed an arch glance towards the cornice. “Well, and how are you keeping?” the doctor asked, dropping on to a rep causeuse that stood before the fire. “I’m only semi-well, doctor, thanks!” “Why, what’s the trouble?” “You know my organism is not a very strong one, Dr Cuncliffe ...” Mrs Montgomery replied, drawing up a chair, and settling a cushion with a sigh of resignation at her back. “Imagination!” “If only it were!” “Imagination,” he repeated, fixing a steady eye on the short train of her black brocaded robe that all but brushed his feet. “If that’s your explanation for continuous broken sleep ...” she gently snapped. “Try mescal.” “I’m trying Dr Fritz Millar’s treatment,” the lady stated, desiring to deal a slight _scratch_ to his masculine _amour propre_. “Millar’s an Ass.” “I don’t agree at all!” she incisively returned, smiling covertly at his touch of pique. “What is it?” “Oh it’s horrid. You first of all lie down; and then you drink cold water in the sun.” “Cold what? I never _heard_ of such a thing: It’s enough to kill you.” Mrs Montgomery took a deep-drawn breath of languor. “And would you care, doctor, so _very_ much if it did?” she asked, as a page made his appearance with an ice-bucket and champagne. “To toast our young Princess!” “Oh, oh, Dr Cuncliffe? What a wicked man you are:” And for a solemn moment their thoughts went out in unison to the sea-girt land of their birth--Barkers’, Selfridges’, Brighton-pier, the Zoological gardens on a Sunday afternoon. “Here’s to the good old country!” the doctor quaffed. “The Bride, and,” Mrs Montgomery raised her glass, “the Old Folks at h-home.” “The Old Folks at home!” he vaguely echoed. “Bollinger, you naughty man,” the lady murmured, amiably seating herself on the causeuse at his side. “You’ll find it dull here all alone after the Court has gone,” he observed, smiling down, a little despotically, on to her bright, abundant hair. Mrs Montgomery sipped her wine. “When the wind goes whistling up and down under the colonnades: oh, then!” she shivered. “You’ll wish for a fine, bold Pisuergian husband; shan’t you?” he answered, his foot drawing closer to hers.