s always the result of letting the
mind dwell, however briefly, on Anatole's cooking, died out of her face.

"But don't let me wander from the subject," she resumed. "I was telling
you of the way hell's foundations have been quivering since I got home.
First the prize-giving, then Tom, and now, on top of everything else,
this infernal quarrel between Angela and young Glossop."

I nodded gravely. "I was frightfully sorry to hear of that. Terrible
shock. What was the row about?"

"Sharks."

"Eh?"

"Sharks. Or, rather, one individual shark. The brute that went for the
poor child when she was aquaplaning at Cannes. You remember Angela's
shark?"

Certainly I remembered Angela's shark. A man of sensibility does not
forget about a cousin nearly being chewed by monsters of the deep. The
episode was still green in my memory.

In a nutshell, what had occurred was this: You know how you aquaplane. A
motor-boat nips on ahead, trailing a rope. You stand on a board, holding
the rope, and the boat tows you along. And every now and then you lose
your grip on the rope and plunge into the sea and have to swim to your
board again.

A silly process it has always seemed to me, though many find it
diverting.

Well, on the occasion referred to, Angela had just regained her board
after taking a toss, when a great beastly shark came along and cannoned
into it, flinging her into the salty once more. It took her quite a bit
of time to get on again and make the motor-boat chap realize what was up
and haul her to safety, and during that interval you can readily picture
her embarrassment.

According to Angela, the finny denizen kept snapping at her ankles
virtually without cessation, so that by the time help arrived, she was
feeling more like a salted almond at a public dinner than anything human.
Very shaken the poor child had been, I recall, and had talked of nothing
else for weeks.

"I remember the whole incident vividly," I said. "But how did that start
the trouble?"

"She was telling him the story last night."

"Well?"

"Her eyes shining and her little hands clasped in girlish excitement."

"No doubt."

"And instead of giving her the understanding and sympathy to which she
was entitled, what do you think this blasted Glossop did? He sat
listening like a lump of dough, as if she had been talking about the
weather, and when she had finished, he took his cigarette holder out of
his mouth and said, 'I expect it was only a flo