good-humouredly.

"Promise me you won't let anything short of a case of life or death keep
you away?"

"It's as serious as that, is it? All right, I'll be on hand, unless the
heavens fall."

He was good as his word, and at the appointed hour his hostess, keeping
an agitated watch on her neighbour's house, saw him arrive, in plenty of
time to dress. She drew a relieved breath.

"I didn't expect it," she said to James Macauley, her husband.

"Oh, Red's game. He won't run away from this, much as he hates it. Like
the rest of us married men, he knows when dodging positively won't do,"
and Macauley sighed as he settled his tie before the reception-room
mirror, obtaining a view of himself with some difficulty, on account of
the towering masses of flowers and foliage which obscured the glass.

When Burns and Ellen came across the lawn, Martha flew to meet them.

"You splendid people! Who wouldn't want to have a reception for such a
pair?"

"We flatter ourselves we do look pretty fine," Burns admitted, eying his
wife with satisfaction. "That gauzy gray thing Ellen has on strikes me as
the bulliest yet. If I could just get her to wear a pink rose in her hair
I'd be satisfied."