Thereon James rose to reply in terms of elephantine eloquence, and would
have gone through the whole case again had not Lady Holmhurst in despair
pulled him by the sleeve and told him that he must propose her health,
which he did with sincerity, lightly alluding to the fact that she was a
widow by describing her as being in a "discovert condition, with all the
rights and responsibilities of a 'femme sole.'"
Everybody burst out laughing, not excepting poor lady Holmhurst herself,
and James sat down, not without indignation that a giddy world should
object to an exact and legal definition of the status of the individual
as set out by the law.
And after that Augusta went and changed her dress, and then came the
hurried good-byes; and, to escape observation, they drove off in a
hansom cab amidst a shower of old shoes.
And there in that hansom cab we will leave them.
CHAPTER XXIII.
MEESON'S ONCE AGAIN.
A month had passed--a month of long, summer days and such happiness as
young people who truly love each other can get out of a honeymoon spent
under the most favourable circumstances in the sweetest, sunniest spots
of the Channel Islands. And now the curtain draws up for the last time in
this history, where it drew up for the first--in the inner office of
Meeson's huge establishment.
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