“Oh no, it isn’t,” he continued.  “Lucille has killed it.  Nothing to be terrified about....  Oh, chuck it, man!  Get up and blow your nose....”  He was sent sprawling on his back as Lucille dropped by Dam’s side and strove to raise his face from the grass.

“Come off it, Dam!  You’re very funny, we know,” adjured the sporting character, rather ashamed and discomfortable at seeing a brother man behaving so.  There are limits to acting the goat—­especially with wimmin about.  Why couldn’t Dam drop it?...

Lucille was shocked and horrified to the innermost fibres of her being.  Her dignified, splendid Dam rolling on the ground, shrieking, sobbing, writhing....  Ill or well, joke or seizure, it was horrible, unseemly....  Why couldn’t the gaping fools be obliterated?...

“Dam, dear,” she whispered in his ear, as she knelt over the shuddering, gasping, sobbing man.  “What is it, Dam?  Are you ill?  Dam, it’s Lucille....  The snake is quite dead, dear.  I killed it.  Are you joking?  Dam! Dam!” ...

The stricken wretch screamed like a terrified child.

“Oh, won’t somebody fetch Dr. Jones if he’s not here yet,” she wailed, turning to the mystified crowd of guests.  “Get some water quickly, somebody, salts, brandy, anything!  Oh, do go away,” and she deftly unfastened the collar of the spasm-wracked sufferer.  “Haddon,” she cried, looking up and seeing the grinning Haddock, “go straight for Dr. Jones.  Cycle if you’re afraid of spoiling your clothes by riding.  Quick!”

“Oh, he’ll be all right in a minute,” drawled the Haddock, who did not relish a stiff ride along dusty roads in his choicest confection.  “He’s playing the fool, I believe—­or a bit scared at the ferocious serpent.”

Lucille gave the youth a look that he never forgot, and turned to the sporting person.

“You know the stables, Mr. Fellerton,” she said.  “Would you tell Pattern or somebody to send a man for Dr. Jones?  Tell him to beat the record.”

The sporting one sprinted toward the shrubbery which lay between the grounds and the kitchen-gardens, beyond which were the stables.

Most people, with the better sort of mind, withdrew and made efforts to recommence the interrupted games or to group themselves once more about the lawns and marquees.

Others remained to make fatuous suggestions, to wonder, or merely to look on with feelings approaching awe and fascination.  There was something uncanny here—­a soldier and athlete weeping and screaming and going into fits at the sight of a harmless grass-snake, probably a mere blind worm!  Was he a hysterical, neurotic coward, after all—­a wretched decadent?