Chapter 21

Mr. and Mrs. Reginald Byng, seated at a table in the corner of the Regent Grill-Room, gazed fondly into each other's eyes. George, seated at the same table, but feeling many miles away, watched them moodily, fighting to hold off a depression which, cured for a while by the exhilaration of the ride in Reggie's racing-car (it had beaten its previous record for the trip to London by nearly twenty minutes), now threatened to return. The gay scene, the ecstasy of Reggie, the more restrained but equally manifest happiness of his bride--these things induced melancholy in George. He had not wished to attend the wedding-lunch, but the happy pair seemed to be revolted at the idea that he should stroll off and get a bite to eat somewhere else.

"Stick by us, laddie," Reggie had said pleadingly, "for there is much to discuss, and we need the counsel of a man of the world. We are married all right--"

"Though it didn't seem legal in that little registrar's office," put in Alice.

"--But that, as the blighters say in books, is but a beginning, not an end. We have now to think out the most tactful way of letting the news seep through, as it were, to the mater."

"And Lord Marshmoreton," said Alice. "Don't forget he has lost his secretary."

"And Lord Marshmoreton," amended Reggie. "And about a million other people who'll be most frightfully peeved at my doing the Wedding Glide without consulting them. Stick by us, old top. Join our simple meal. And over the old coronas we will discuss many things."

The arrival of a waiter with dishes broke up the silent communion between husband and wife, and lowered Reggie to a more earthly plane. He refilled the glasses from the stout bottle that nestled in the ice-bucket-(" Only this one, dear!" murmured the bride in a warning undertone, and "All right darling!" replied the dutiful groom)-and raised his own to his lips.

"Cheerio! Here's to us all! Maddest, merriest day of all the glad New year and so forth. And now," he continued, becoming sternly practical, "about the good old sequel and aftermath, so to speak, of this little binge of ours. What's to be done. You're a brainy sort of feller, Bevan, old man, and we look to you for suggestions. How would you set about breaking the news to mother?"

"Write her a letter," said George.

Reggie was profoundly impressed.

"Didn't I tell you he would have some devilish shrewd scheme?" he said enthusiastically to Alice. "Write her a letter! What could be better? Poetry, by Gad!" His face clouded. "But what would you say in it? That's a pretty knotty point."

"Not at all. Be perfectly frank and straightforward. Say you are sorry to go against her wishes--"

"Wishes," murmured Reggie,