The fish came and they both fell to,—Lola watching Fallaray’s table
keenly. “I saw a rather decent photograph of you in the _Tatler_
to-day,” she said. It might have been Feo who spoke. “You won the point
to point, didn’t you?”
“I did,” said Chalfont. “But I should have been beaten by the Boy if I
hadn’t had a better horse. He rode like the devil.”
“You don’t think that point to points are rather playing the fool just
now, then?” The question came quietly but had the effect of making
Chalfont suspend his fork in mid-air.
“Yes. I do. But under the present system what is the ordinary plain man
to do but stand aside and watch our political muddlers mess everything
up? I was asked to rejoin and take over a district in Ireland. Not me. I
could see myself raising Cain in about ten minutes and washed out at the
end of a week. Soldiers aren’t required in Ireland.”
“No?”
“No. Nor policemen, nor machine guns. Ireland stands in need of a little
man with an Irish accent and the soul of Christ.”
Lola rose to her feet. Fallaray had done the same thing and was bending
over his mother.
And so Chalfont with, it must be confessed, a slightly rueful glance at
his plate, told the waiter to give his bill to his chief, and followed
Madame de Brézé along the lane between the tables and up the long path
of the “monkey house.” And presently, when Fallaray gave his number to
the flunkey and waited for his coat and hat, Chalfont carried out his
orders. He went forward. “How do you do?” he said. “Wonderful weather.”
It was a little lame.
Fallaray did not recognize the speaker except as a man who obviously had
been a soldier. A left hand had been presented. The other was eloquent
enough. “How are you?” he replied. “Yes, it _is_ wonderful weather.”
And then Chalfont made the plunge. “I want to introduce you, if I may,
to one of our Allies who admires you very much, Madame de Brézé—Mr.
Fallaray.”
Fallaray turned. From the little eager hand that nestled into his own
Lola sent a message of all the hero-worship and adoration that possessed
her soul and all the desire to serve and love that had become the one
overwhelming passion of her life. But neither spoke.
A moment later she was standing with Peter Chalfont, watching Fallaray
on his way out with the two little ladies.—Her heart was fluttering like
the wings of a bird.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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