The Dop Doctor Part 73

"I've reason to be. If a man had written what you have I should punch his head."

"Say that again!"

"I say, if a stranger of the kickable s.e.x had told such a pack of infernal----"

_Click!_

Lady Hannah hung up the receiver, blew a contemptuous kiss into the gape of the celluloid mouthpiece, and turned to go. There was another ring-up as she reached the door.

"Hallo. Are you the Convalescent Hospital?"

"Yes. Who are you?"

"Staff Bombproof South. I want to speak to Lady Hannah Wrynche."

"I'm here, Lord Beauvayse."

"I say, I'm going to rag you frightfully. Why on earth have you given us away in that beastly paper?"

"Whom do you mean by 'us'?"

"Well, me and Miss Mildare."

"Didn't you tell me on Sunday that you were engaged?" she demanded indignantly.

"I did." The answer came back haltingly.

"And that you didn't care who knew it?"

"Fact."

"And that you two were going to be married as soon as you could pull off the event?"

"Yes." The voice was palpably embarra.s.sed. "But----"

"Well?"

"But--things you don't mind people knowing look beastly in cold print."

"If I were in your shoes I should think they looked beautiful."

Nothing but a faint buzz came back. Lady Hannah went on:

"If I were in your shoes, and such a pearl and prize and paragon as Lynette Mildare had consented to marry me, I should want the whole world to envy me my colossal good luck. I should go about in sandwich-boards advertising it. I should buy a megaphone, and proclaim it through that. I should----"

There was no response beyond the buzzing of the wire. Beauvayse had evidently hung up the receiver.

"Is there any creature upon earth more cowardly than a man engaged?" Lady Hannah demanded of s.p.a.ce. There was a futile struggle inside the telephone-box. Somebody else was trying to ring up. She put the receiver back upon the crutches, and--

"_Ting--ting--ting!_" said the bell in a high, thin voice.

"Who is it?" she asked.

The answer came back with official clearness:

"Officer of the day, Staff Headquarters. If you're the Convalescent Hospital, the Colonel would like to speak to Lady Hannah Wrynche."

Her knees became as jelly, and her heart seemed to turn a somersault. She answered in a would-be jaunty voice that wobbled horribly:

"Here--here--is Lady Hannah."

"Hold on a minute, please!"

She held on. She had not shuddered at the end of the wire for more than a minute when the well-known, infinitely-dreaded voice said in her ear, so clearly that she jumped:

"Lady Hannah there? How d'you do?"

She gulped, and quavered:

"It--it depends on what you're going to say."

"I see." There was the vibration of a stifled laugh, and her heart jumped to meet it. "So you antic.i.p.ated a hauling over the coals?"

Revived, she shrugged her little shoulders.

"Have I deserved one?"

The voice said, with unmistakable displeasure in it:

"Thoroughly. Why were not the last three paragraphs of the weekly 'Social Jottings' column submitted to me yesterday with the rest?"

She heard herself t.i.tter imbecilely. Then a voice, which she could hardly believe her own, said, with a pitiable effort to be gay and natural:

"Weren't they? Perhaps you overlooked them?"

"You know I did not overlook them."

This was the cold, incisive, cutting, rasping voice which Bingo was wont to describe as razors and files. Her ears burned like fire, and her bright, birdlike eyes were round and scared. She gasped:

"Oh ... do you really----"

"I want the truth, please, without quibbling." The voice was harsh and cold, and inexorably compelling. "Why were those paragraphs not shown to me?"

She winked away her tears.

"Because I was sure you'd blue-pencil them out of existence. And a genuine bit of news is such a roc's egg in these times of scarcity."

"Genuine!"