Dodo Wonders Part 9

"No, dear; don't interrupt. But he suggests that I should send the proposed list of my guests to him for purposes of revision and addition.

Did you ever hear anything like that?"

Dodo read on, and gave a shrill scream.

"And that's not all!" she shouted. "He suggests that I should send him the choice of three dates about the middle of July and he will then inform me in due course which will be the most convenient. Is the man mad? There aren't three dates about the middle of July, and if there were I wouldn't send him them."

"What are you going to say?" asked Jack.

"I shall say that I happen to have no vacant dates about the middle of July, but that I am giving a ball on the sixteenth and that I shall be delighted to ask his Indian friend, who may come to dinner first if I can find room for him. About my list of guests I shall say that I should no more dream of sending it to him for revision and addition than I should send it to my scullery-maid, and that if my friends aren't good enough for a Maharajah, he may go and dance with his own. My guests to be revised by Lord Cookham! Additions to be made by him! Isn't he quite priceless?"

"Completely. Mind you don't ask him."

"Certainly I shan't. The soup gets cold when Cookham comes to dine.

Also, as Prince Albert says, when he comes in at the door gaiety flies out of the window."

Jack took up the morning paper.

"The only news seems to be that he and the Princess have come up to town," he observed. "They are to stay with your Daddy a few days and then their address will be at the Ritz."

"Daddy will love that," said Dodo, recovering her geniality. "Jam for Daddy. They'll like it too, because it will save a few more days of hotel-bills. What a happy family!"

Jack turned back on to the middle page of the _Times_. He usually began rather further on where there were cricket matches and short paragraphs, in order to reawaken his interest in the affairs of the day.

"Hullo!" he said. "What a horrible thing!"

Dodo had not noticed that he had left the cricket-page.

"Has Nottinghamshire got out leg before?" she asked vaguely.

"No. But the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife have been murdered at Serajevo."

Dodo rapidly considered whether this made any difference to her, and decided that it did not matter as much as the letter she was reading.

"I don't think I ever heard of him," she said. "And where's Serajevo?"

"In Servia or one of those places," said Jack. "The Archduke was the heir to the Austrian throne."

Dodo put down her letter.

"Oh, poor man!" she said. "How horrid to be killed, if you were going to be an Emperor! What makes you frown, Jack? Did you know him?"

"No. But there is always trouble in those states. Some day the trouble will spread."

Dodo gathered up her letters.

"Trouble will now spread for Baron Cookham," she remarked. "I think I shall telephone to him. He hates being telephoned to like a common person."

"May I listen?" asked Jack.

"Do, darling, and suggest insults in a low voice."

Dodo sent a message that Lord Cookham was required in person at the degrading instrument, and having secured his presence talked in her best telephone-voice, slow and calm and clear-cut.

"Good morning," she said. "I have received your letter. Yes, isn't it a lovely day? I have been riding. No, not writing. Riding. Horse. About your letter. I am giving a ball on the sixteenth of July, and I shall be delighted to ask your friend. Of course I shan't give another ball for him, but if the sixteenth will do, there we are. And what a delicious joke of yours about my sending you a list of my guests! I think I shall ask for a list of the guests when I go to a dance. A lovely idea."

Dodo paused a moment, listening.

"I don't see the slightest difference," she said. "And I can't give you a choice of days, because I haven't got one to give you."

She paused again, and hastily put her hand over the receiver.

"Jack, he wants to come and talk to me about it," she whispered, her voice quivering with amus.e.m.e.nt. Then it resumed its firm telephone-tone.

"Yes, certainly," she cried. "I shall be in for the next half-hour.

After that? Let me see; about the same time to-morrow morning. You'll come at once then? Au revoir."

Dodo replaced the instrument, and bubbled with laughter.

"Oh, my dear, what fun!" she said. "I adore studying him. I shall get a real glimpse into his mind this morning, and if he annoys me as he did in his letter about the list, he shall get a glimpse into mine. He will probably be very much astonished with what it contains."

It was not long before Lord Cookham arrived. He was pink and large and sleek, and could not possibly be mistaken for anybody else except some eminently respectable butler, in whose care the wine and the silver were perfectly safe. Dodo had not quite finished breakfast when he was announced, and proceeded with it.

"So good of you to come and see me at such short notice," she said. "Do smoke."

He waved away the cigarettes she offered him, and produced a gold case with a coronet on it.

"With your leave, Lady Chesterford," he said, "I will have one of my own."

"Do!" said Dodo cordially. "And light it with one of your own matches.

Now about my dance."

He cleared his throat exactly as if he was about to make a speech.

"The suggestion that his Highness should come to a ball given by you,"

he said, "originated with myself. Such an entertainment could not fail to give pleasure to him, nor his presence fail to honour you. His visit to this country is to be regarded as that of a foreign monarch, and in the present unhappy state of unrest in India----"

"It will be nice for him to get away for a little quiet," suggested Dodo.

Lord Cookham bowed precisely as a butler bows when a guest presents him on Monday morning with a smaller token of grat.i.tude than he had antic.i.p.ated.

"In the present unhappy state of unrest in India," he resumed, "it is important that the most rigid etiquette should be observed towards his Highness, and that he should see, accompanied by every exhibition of magnificence, not only the might and power of England, but all that is most characteristic and splendid in the life of English subjects and citizens."

"I will wear what Jack calls the family fender," said Dodo. "Tiara, you know, so tall that you couldn't fall into the fire if you put it on the hearthrug."

Lord Cookham bowed again.

"Exactly," he said. "The fame of the Chesterford diamonds is world-wide, and you have supplied a wholly apposite ill.u.s.tration of what I am attempting to point out. But it is not only in material splendour, Lady Chesterford, that I desire to produce a magnificent impression on our honoured visitor; I want him to mix with all that is stateliest in birth, in intellect, in aristocracy of all kinds, of science, of art, of industrial pre-eminence, of politics, of public service. It was with this idea in my mind that your name occurred to me as being the most capable among all our London hostesses of bringing together such an a.s.sembly as will be perfectly characteristic of all that is most splendid in the social life of our nation."