Lord Holme burst into a roar of
laughter. His big bass voice vibrated through the room. Suddenly Lady
Holme laughed too.
"Why are you laughing?" Robin Pierce asked rather harshly. "You didn't
hear what Lady Manby said."
"No, but Fritz is so infectious. I believe there are laughter microbes.
What a noise he makes! It's really a scandal."
And she laughed again joyously.
"You don't know much about women if you think any story of Lady Manby's
is necessary, to prompt my mirth. Poor dear old Fritz is quite enough.
There he goes again!"
Robin Pierce began to look stiff with constraint, and just then Sir
Donald Ulford, in his progress round the walls, reached the sofa where
they were sitting.
"You are very fortunate to possess this Cuyp, Lady Holme," he said in a
voice from which all resonance had long ago departed.
"Alas, Sir Donald, cows distress me! They call up sad memories. I was
chased by one in the park at Grantoun when I was a child. A fly had stung
it, so it tried to kill me. This struck me as unreason run riot, and ever
since then I have wished the Spaniards would go a step farther and make
cow-fights the national pastime. I hate cows frankly."
Sir Donald sat down in an armchair and looked, with his faded blue eyes,
into the eyes of his hostess. His drawn yellow face was melancholy, like
the face of one who had long been an invalid. People who knew him well,
however, said there was nothing the matter with him, and that his
appearance had not altered during the last twenty years.
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