Mrs. Massington laughed.
' You are extremely old-fashioned,' she said. ' I wonder at your dining with Mrs. Palmer at all, and coming to her box.'
' I often wonder at it myself,' said he. ' Never mind that. I haven't seen you for an age. What have you been doing with yourself?'
' I haven't been doing anything with myself. It is other people who have been doing all sorts of things with me. I have been taken by the scruff of the neck and dragged—literally dragged—from place to place. All this week there's been the Serington case, you see. I was in the court for three mornings, getting up at unheard-of hours to be there. Really it was very amusing. Topsie in the witness-box was the funniest thing you can possibly imagine. He jumped every time anybody asked him a question. They seem to have had the most extraordinary ménage, and the servants appear to have spent their entire time in looking through keyholes. I wonder how the house-work got done at all. Charlie, you don't appear in the least amused.'
He looked at her a moment gravely.
' Am I really so awfully old-fashioned?' he asked.
' Yes, you old darling, I think you are. Are you shocked at my calling you an old darling? It's quite true, you know.'
' Delighted to hear it. But am I old-fashioned, then?'
' Certainly. Antique, out of date, obsolete. Of course, that sort of thing, all the Serington affair, is extremely shocking, and they are done for, quite done for; nobody will ever speak to them again—at least, except abroad. But because it is shocking, I don't see why I should pretend not to be amused at the really ridiculous figure Topsie cut in the witness-box. It would argue a very imperfect sense of humour if I was not amused, and great hypocrisy if I
