I leaned over Evie. "Dearest," I said gently, "do you mean that there's something you would like to know about Kitty?"
Then, with a little shock, she seemed to realise that I might think what in fact had for the moment crossed my mind--that she was jealous of Kitty.
"Oh, Jeff ... no, no--really no!" she assured me in tones of which there was no mistaking the sincerity. "I didn't mean that--poor thing!--I was only joking when I said there was something you wouldn't tell me! Oh, do see what I mean, dear! It's only because _I'm_ so happy that I want everybody else to be--Kitty too--everybody! Really that's all, Jeff!"
It was not quite all, though it was enough to make my heart a little lighter. Mingled with it was something very human that only endeared her to me the more. Her glow and vitality had always put poor Kitty's skimpiness completely into the shade, and what ailed her now was that wistful longing of the victress to be magnanimous that is the uneasy aftercrop of triumph. On herself it had all the effect of a generosity, but that, and not jealousy, was really it....
"Well, after all, we don't know that she isn't happy," I said cheerfully. "Anyway, she pleased herself, and--it's four years ago.... Just listen to the row!"
I was glad of the diversion that came just then. Led by a Jew's harp, the party at the next table had broken into "Soldiers of the Queen," and for the five hundredth time that day the song had "caught on" instantly. The whole garden was now vociferating it, standing on seats, dancing between the tables, their rising and falling heads a dark and bizarre tumult in the conflicting lights. At the gate of the garden a barrel-organ stopped and took up the same song in another key, but they drowned it:--
"Who've b--ee--een--my lads! And s--ee--een--my lads!"
Talk in that uproar was impossible, and again there enwrapped us that strong sense of rich and rough and abundant life. As we leaned over our little table to watch, Evie's finger was moving in time to the song, and even the thought of the little house a few hundred yards away disappeared for a moment from my own mind. A chair with a couple of girls upon it broke, and there were shrieks and applause and whistles and laughter; and then the song began to die away. Cheers followed it, and cheers again, for throats cheered readily then; and then our neighbours of the next table formed themselves into single file, and, with a last shrill