"What's his name? Confound him."
"Mr. Derby, I think. Why can't they give us a moment's peace?" she
pouted. Derby came up to them, his eyes sparkling with a fire which
they could not and were not to understand. He had surveyed them from a
distance for some time before deciding to ruthlessly, cruelly break in
upon the tranquil situation.
"She's a pretty girl," he reflected, unconsciously going back to his
college days, and quite forgetting his cloth--which, by the way, was a
neat blue serge with a tender stripe. Consoling himself with the
thought that he was doing it to accommodate an old friend, the good-
looking Mr. Derby boldly entered the lists for the afternoon. He felt,
somehow, that he had it in his power to make Mr. Windomshire quite
jealous--and at the same time do nothing reprehensible. What he did
succeed in doing, alas, was to make two young people needlessly
miserable for a whole afternoon--bringing on grievous headaches and an
attack of suppressed melancholia that savoured somewhat of actual
madness.
[Illustration: Windomshire]
True to his project, he laboured hard and skilfully for hours.
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