Still, I maintained (by Hilda’s advice) my dignified reserve, and took my seat severely with a cold “Good-morning.” I behaved like a high-class consultant, who expects to be made Physician in Ordinary to Her Majesty.
At lunch that day, Hilda played her first card with delicious unconsciousness—apparent unconsciousness; for, when she chose, she was a consummate actress. She played it at a moment when Lady Meadowcroft, who by this time was burning with curiosity on our account, had paused from her talk with her husband to listen to us. I happened to say something about some Oriental curios belonging to an aunt of mine in London. Hilda seized the opportunity. “What did you say was her name?” she asked, blandly.
“Why, Lady Tepping,” I answered, in perfect innocence. “She has a fancy for these things, you know. She brought a lot of them home with her from Burma.”
As a matter of fact, as I have already explained, my poor dear aunt is an extremely commonplace old Army widow, whose husband happened to get knighted among the New Year’s honours for some brush with the natives on the Shan frontier. But Lady Meadowcroft was at the stage where a title is a title; and the discovery that I was the nephew of a “titled person” evidently interested her. I could feel rather than see that she glanced significantly aside at Sir Ivor, and that Sir Ivor in return made a little movement of his shoulders equivalent to “I told you so.”
Now Hilda knew perfectly well that the aunt of whom I spoke was Lady Tepping; so I felt sure that she had played this card of malice prepense, to pique Lady Meadowcroft.
But Lady Meadowcroft herself seized the occasion with inartistic avidity. She had hardly addressed us as yet. At the sound of the magic passport, she pricked up her ears, and turned to me suddenly. “Burma?” she said, as if to conceal the true reason for her change of front. “Burma? I had a cousin there once. He was in the Gloucestershire Regiment.”
“Indeed?” I answered. My tone was one of utter unconcern in her cousin’s history. “Miss Wade, will you take Bombay ducks with your curry?” In public, I thought it wise under the circumstances to abstain from calling her Hilda. It might lead to misconceptions; people might suppose we were more than fellow-travellers.
“You have had relations in Burma?” Lady Meadowcroft persisted.
I manifested a desire to discontinue the conversation. “Yes,” I answered, coldly, “my uncle commanded there.”
“Commanded there! Really! Ivor, do you hear? Dr. Cumberledge’s uncle commanded in Burma.” A faint intonation on the word commanded drew unobtrusive attention to its social importance. “May I ask what was his name?—my cousin was there, you see.” An insipid smile. “We may have friends in common.”
“He was a certain Sir Malcolm Tepping,” I blurted out, staring hard at my plate.
“Tepping! I think I have heard Dick speak of him, Ivor.”
“Your cousin,” Sir Ivor answered, with emphatic dignity, “is certain to have mixed with nobbut the highest officials in Burma.”
“Yes, I’m sure Dick used to speak of a certain Sir Malcolm. My cousin’s name, Dr. Cumberledge, was Maltby—Captain Richard Maltby.”
“Indeed,” I answered, with an icy stare. “I cannot pretend to the pleasure of having met him.”
Be exclusive to the exclusive, and they burn to know you. From that moment forth Lady Meadowcroft pestered us with her endeavours to scrape acquaintance. Instead of trying how far she could place her chair from us, she set it down as near us as politeness permitted. She entered into conversation whenever an opening afforded itself, and we two stood off haughtily. She even ventured to question me about our relation to one another: “Miss Wade is your cousin, I suppose?” she suggested.