Sweetness wore a perfectly cut gown of deep crimson velvet. Mr Reeder thought that she looked twenty-four and not a day over, and had he the courage of a lady’s man—a quality he much envied—he would have said as much.
“What were you talking about?” she asked.
“We were talking of guns,” said Mr Reeder loudly, “um—revolvers.”
She smiled at this.
“And my husband was giving his well-known views of the sanctity of human life,” she said scornfully.
Mr Reeder smiled.
“Rather I was giving a bit of my mind, my dear madam,” he said.
“My dear,” broke in the host, “all this arose from a question I asked Mr Reeder: whether he carried weapons. He doesn’t.”
“I expect poor Thomas was terribly disappointed,” said Mrs Ingham. “When he unpacked your bag he had expected to find it full of pistols and
