A Damsel in Distress

"Hullo, mater. Pretty fit and so forth? What did you want to see me

about?"

"Well, Reggie, what is the news?"

"Eh? What? News? Didn't you get hold of a paper at breakfast?

Nothing much in it. Tam Duggan beat Alec Fraser three up and two to

play at Prestwick. I didn't notice anything else much. There's a

new musical comedy at the Regal. Opened last night, and seems to be

just like mother makes. The Morning Post gave it a topping notice.

I must trickle up to town and see it some time this week."

Lady Caroline frowned. This slowness in the uptake, coming so soon

after her brother's inattention, displeased her.

"No, no, no. I mean you and Maud have been talking to each other

for quite a long time, and she seemed very interested in what you

were saying. I hoped you might have some good news for me."

Reggie's face brightened. He caught her drift.

"Oh, ah, yes, I see what you mean. No, there wasn't anything of

that sort or shape or order."

"What were you saying to her, then, that interested her so much?"

"I was explaining how I landed dead on the pin with my spoon out of

a sand-trap at the eleventh hole yesterday. It certainly was a

pretty ripe shot, considering. I'd sliced into this baby bunker,

don't you know; I simply can't keep 'em straight with the iron

nowadays--and there the pill was, grinning up at me from the sand.

Of course, strictly speaking, I ought to have used a niblick, but--"

"Do you mean to say, Reggie, that, with such an excellent

opportunity, you did not ask Maud to marry you?"

"I see what you mean. Well, as a matter of absolute fact, I, as it

were, didn't."

Lady Caroline uttered a wordless sound.

"By the way, mater," said Reggie, "I forgot to tell you about that.

It's all off."

"What!"

"Absolutely. You see, it appears there's a chappie unknown for whom

Maud has an absolute pash. It seems she met this sportsman up in

Wales last summer. She was caught in the rain, and he happened to

be passing and rallied round with his rain-coat, and one thing led

to another. Always raining in Wales, what! Good fishing, though,

here and there. Well, what I mean is, this cove was so deucedly

civil, and all that, that now she won't look at anybody else. He's

the blue-eyed boy, and everybody else is an also-ran, with about as

much chance as a blind man with one arm trying to get out of a

bunker with a tooth-pick."

"What perfect nonsense! I know all about that affair. It was just a

passing fancy that never meant anything. Maud has got over that

long ago."