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. 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.