Buch lesen: «Mrs. Fitz», Seite 7

"I was hoping," said Fitz, "that we could get away before the return of von Arlenberg."

The smile of the Princess was of rare brilliancy.

"Ah yes, the dear Baron. Perhaps it is better."

Fitz took the cloak from the hands of the lady, but before he could place it around his wife's shoulders voices were heard at the far end of the long room.

Three men had entered.

The first of these to approach us was a tall, stout and florid personage wearing full Court dress and so many decorations that he looked like a caricature. Certainly he was a magnificent figure of a man, but, at this moment, a little lacking in serenity. His face showed traces of a consternation that would have been almost comic had it not been rather painful. At the sight of the six of us he spread out his hands and gesticulated to those who had come with him into the room.

In an undertone he said something in Illyrian, which I did not understand.

In striking contrast to the perturbation of the Ambassador the manner of the Princess was as amiable and composed as if she were seated in the castle at Blaenau.

"Ah, Baron, you have dined well?"

"Excellently, madam, excellently!" said the Ambassador. The consternation in his face was slowly deepening.

"Très bien; it is well. I have heard my father say that cooking was the only art in which the good English are not quite perfect. And le bon roi Edouard, I hope he is in good health?"

"In robust health, madam, in robust health."

The dismay in the eyes of the Ambassador was rather tragic. His gaze was travelling constantly to meet that of his two companions, stolid men who yet were at a loss to conceal their uneasiness. On the other hand, the air of the Princess was charmingly cool and dégagé.

"Baron," said she, "do you know my husband?"

Her smile, as she spoke, acquired a malice that made one think of a sword.

"Madam, I have not the privilege," said the Ambassador coldly.

Somehow the manner of the reply gave one an enlarged idea of his Excellency's calibre. If in such a situation it is permissible for a humble spectator to speak of himself, I felt my throat tighten and my heart begin to beat.

"Well, Baron," said the Princess, "it is a privilege that I am sure you covet. His Excellency the Herr Baron von Arlenberg, my dear father's representative in England, Mr. Nevil Fitzwaren, squire of Broadfields, in the County of Middleshire."

The Ambassador bowed gravely and then held out his hand.

Fitz returned the bow of Ferdinand the Twelfth's representative slightly and curtly, but ignored his hand altogether.

CHAPTER XIII
FURTHER PASSAGES AT NO. 300 PORTLAND PLACE

The Princess was amused.

"Aha, les Anglais! Très bons enfants!"

The royal eyebrows had an uplift of mischievous pleasure.

"And this, dear Baron," said her Royal Highness, "is my good friend Colonel Coverdale, who has smelt powder in the wars of his country."

Fitz's open rudeness seemed to help the Ambassador to sustain his poise. He bowed and offered his hand to the Chief Constable in a fashion precisely similar to that he had used to the husband of the Princess.

The Chief Constable shook hands with the Ambassador. It was amusing to observe the manner in which each of these big dogs looked over the other. The representative of Ferdinand the Twelfth was a man of greater calibre than his first appearance had led us to believe.

"It is pleasant, madam," said he, "to find you surrounded by your English friends."

The dark eyes brimmed with meaning.

"Confess, Baron, that you did not think I had so many."

"Your Royal Highness is not kind to my intelligence," said his Excellency.

"Confess, then, you did not think that such was their courage?"

"I will perjure myself if your Royal Highness desires it." The Ambassador's laugh was not so gay in effect as it was in intention. "But could I believe that you would admit any save the bravest to your friendship?"

"Then you recognise, Baron, that my friends are brave?"

"Unquestionably, madam, they are brave."

"Explain then, Baron, why you did not guard the doors of my prison? For what reason, when you went out to dine this evening, did you forget to lock them and put the keys in your pocket?"

Before the subtle laughter in the eyes of his questioner the Ambassador lowered his gaze.

"I trust your Royal Highness does not feel that one of the oldest, if one of the humblest, servants of the good King has so little regard for your Royal Highness as to seek to debar her from the simplest of pleasures?"

"It has not occurred to your Excellency that that of which you speak as the simplest of pleasures may prove for yourself the greatest of calamities?"

At this point the Ambassador was tempted to dissemble.

"I am at a loss, madam, to read your thoughts."

"Liar!" muttered Fitz in my ear.

"Your Excellency appears to have a store of natural simplicity," said the Princess.

The Ambassador bowed.

"Is it not a great thing to have, madam, in these days?"

"Has it not occurred to your Excellency that it is a luxury that those who would serve their Sovereign occasionally deny themselves?"

"If it pleases your Royal Highness to exercise your delightful wit at the expense of the humblest servant of the good King!"

"It does not please me, Excellency. It grieves me to the heart."

With an address that was remarkable the Princess changed her tone. Quite suddenly the clear and mellow inflection of light banter was exchanged for one of coldly wrought reproof.

"I am sorry, madam," said the Ambassador, simply and with sincerity; "I am a thousand times sorry. I can never forgive myself if I have wounded the susceptibilities of your Royal Highness. Already I had hoped I had made it clear that the least of your servants has not been a free agent in all that has been done. I am the humble instrument of an august master."

"I agree with you, Herr Baron, that the King, in his wisdom, cannot do wrong. But it is because you have betrayed the service of your master that I am unhappy."

The Herr Baron lowered his eyes.

"Please God," he said humbly, "the least of the King's servants will never betray the service of him to whom he owes everything."

The Princess laughed, a little cruelly.

"Speeches, Baron," said she.

"Will your Royal Highness deign to explain in what manner I have betrayed the service of my master?"

"If you press the question, I will answer it. At the command of the King, you take me by force and you imprison me in your house until that hour in which I can be removed to the castle at Blaenau. And then, in an unlucky moment, you open the door of my cage, and I am once again a free person in the company of my friends."

The Princess rose abruptly, and with a disdain that was like a rapier suffered Fitz to place the cloak about her shoulders.

The Ambassador retained his self-possession. In his bearing, in the cold lustre of his eyes, in the rigidity of the jaw, were the evidence of an inflexible will.

"The orders, madam, of the King, my master, are explicit," he said in a low voice. "It grieves me bitterly that I cannot suffer them to be set aside."

"So be it, Herr Baron." The great dark eyes of the Princess transfixed the Ambassador like a pair of swords.

In the midst of these passages Fitz reassumed his rôle of generalissimo.

"Arbuthnot," he whispered to me, "you and Brasset and Vane-Anstruther guard the farthest door. Let no one enter or pass out. Coverdale and O'Mulligan will look after the other one."

In silence, and without ostentation, we disposed ourselves accordingly. Clearly it had not occurred to the Ambassador to expect compulsion to be levied in his own house, by half a dozen commonplace civilians in black coats.

We had hardly taken up our places when Fitz, who stood by the side of the Princess, received from her a look that was also a command. Thereupon, for the first time, he deigned to address the Ambassador.

"Baron von Arlenberg," he said, "the friends of her Royal Highness have no wish to use force majeure, but her Royal Highness desires me to inform you that she has it at her disposal. All the same, she is hopeful that your natural good sense will spare her the necessity of employing it."

Fitz's words were well spoken, but his tone, scrupulously restrained as it was, had an undercurrent of menace that the Ambassador and his two secretaries could hardly fail to detect. The cold eyes of his Excellency seemed to blaze with fury, but he made no reply.

The Princess took the arm of her husband, and moved a pace in the direction of the farther door. At the same moment the Ambassador made a movement to the left where a bell-rope hung from the wall.

"Baron von Arlenberg," said Fitz, in a tone that compelled him to stay where he was, "if you touch that rope I shall blow out your brains."

Fitz had the revolver in his hand already. He covered the Ambassador imperturbably. The two secretaries, although confused by the swiftness of the act, moved forward.

"Keep away from the bell-rope, gentlemen," said Fitz. "I shall not hesitate."

The secretaries halted indecisively beside their chief, and as they did so Coverdale left his post by the nearer door and, revolver in hand, solemnly mounted guard over the bell-rope.

"I am afraid, gentlemen," said Fitz, "you have no choice other than to respect the wishes of the Princess. And she desires that you stay in this room until she has left the Embassy."

However, with all his coolness, Fitz had made two important miscalculations. On the right there was another bell-rope, and there was also the lady of the silver hair, the Margravine of Lesser Grabia. I sprang from my post and literally wrenched the rope from her fingers, but not before she had pulled it as hard as she could.

Escorted by Fitz, the Princess passed out of the room, while the friends of her Royal Highness assumed an aspect of quiet, but determined hostility, in order to prevent the Ambassador, his secretaries, the Margravine, who looked furious, and the fair player of Schumann, who appeared to be consumed with mirth, from following her.

Hardly had the Princess passed through the farther door, which Brasset and Jodey had the honour of holding for her, before the Countess Etta von Zweidelheim collapsed upon a convenient sofa.

"It is petter than Offenbach!" she said, beginning to weep softly.

Whether it was actually better than Offenbach, I am not competent to affirm, but I can answer for it that for all except that charming but risible lady it was a great deal more serious. The Ambassador was a brave man, and he had strength of will, but as becomes one of his calling he was in no sense a fool. He had seen that in the eyes of Fitz which had assured him that a too-punctilious regard for the will of his Sovereign would not only be futile, but indiscreet. And no sooner had Fitz and the royal lady vanished from his ken, than there were Coverdale and the rest of us to contend with.

The Chief Constable with his back to the wall, even without a firearm in his stolid fist, is a very considerable figure of a man who will not brook nonsense from anybody. Then Alexander O'Mulligan, by the farther door, had a personality by no means deficient in persuasiveness.

Scarcely had the Princess departed before O'Mulligan's door was tried from without. The amateur middle-weight champion of Great Britain set his back against it with great success.

"Help! help!" called the Margravine in a deep bay, which it seemed to our alarmed ears must have been audible for half a mile. "Save the Princess! Help! Help!"

In response to the appeal, a greater and ever-increasing pressure was brought to bear upon the door. The hinges groaned, and the panels trembled; and at last Alexander O'Mulligan suddenly withdrew his weight, and divers persons tumbled headlong, one over another, pell-mell into the room.

"I think we had better go," said Coverdale, in the midst of this chaos.

The five remaining champions of the Princess's freedom gathered together and, their weapons still in hand, withdrew in excellent order. But one resplendent apartment led to another, equally resplendent, and amid the labyrinth of doors and corridors we could not find the staircase. And immediately behind us the outraged Ambassador and his retinue were gaining every instant in numbers and morale.

The situation was ludicrous, yet not without its peril. It was hard to know what would happen, and there was very little time in which to form a conjecture. Besides, it was of great importance that we should find our way downstairs without delay, for our presence there might be sorely needed.

As it happened, our thanks were due to the Ambassador that we were able to find the staircase. For he and a number of excited persons flocked past us and pointed a direct course thereto. They got down first, but we followed hard upon their heels.

On the ground floor all was peace. The men in livery and divers stray officials were serenely unconscious of what had occurred. Fitz had donned his overcoat, and with stupendous coolness was preparing to depart. Just as the Ambassador came into view, he led the Princess into the outer vestibule.

"They can't stop 'em now," said Coverdale. "We had better look after our coats and hats, and then find our way to the Savoy."

This was true enough, for the door leading to the street was already open.

Waiting by the kerb was an electric brougham which Fitz had had the forethought to provide. Coverdale and I retrieved our property from the waiting-room at the foot of the staircase, while the others went in search of theirs; and so quickly was this accomplished, that we were able to witness an incident that was not the least memorable of the many of that amazing evening.

The Ambassador realised that the game was lost as soon as he saw the open door and the brougham in readiness. Therefore he refrained from passing beyond the inner vestibule. It is expected of an ambassador that he shall do no hurt to his dignity in the most exacting situations.

But there is an astonishing incident still to be recorded. Fitz, having placed the Princess in safety in the brougham, returned into the house. Walking straight up to the Ambassador, he addressed him in terms of measured insult.

"You cowardly dog," he said. "I would shoot you like a cur if it were not for the laws of the country. You are not worth hanging for. But I will meet you at Paris at the first opportunity. Here is my card."

Before he could be prevented he gave the Ambassador a blow upon the cheek with his open hand. It was not heavy, but it was premeditated.

The members of the Embassy closed around Fitz.

"Come into the ballroom, sir," said the Ambassador, who had turned deadly pale.

"When I have seen the Princess into safety I will oblige you," said Fitz. "But it would be more convenient if we arranged a meeting in Paris."

"You shall meet me now, sir," said the Ambassador.

Coverdale moved forward into the circle that had been formed.

"I am afraid that is impossible," said the Chief Constable. "The practice of duelling has no sanction in this country. For all concerned it will surely be more convenient to meet at Paris."

Coverdale's intention was pacific, and he is a man of weight, but the principals in this affair were likely to be too much for him.

"Arbuthnot," said Fitz, "be good enough to accompany the Princess to the Savoy. We will come on presently."

For a moment the issue hung in the balance. The Ambassador had demanded satisfaction and Fitz was more than willing to grant it. But Coverdale was equally resolute. To the best of my capacity I seconded his efforts, but with men so headstrong and so implacable it was almost impossible to exert any kind of authority.

"If you don't care to support me," said Fitz to Coverdale, "perhaps you will not mind taking the place of Arbuthnot. I daresay you other fellows will come on to the ballroom."

To our dismay, Fitz, with a reassumption of the Napoleonic manner, turned towards the staircase.

"What is to be done?" I inquired of the Chief Constable anxiously. "I am a man of peace myself, but one of us must see him through."

"I agree with you – the cursed firebrand! But one of us must stay, and the other must look after the Princess."

The Chief Constable did not conceal the fact that he had a predilection for the latter duty.

"I don't know much about affairs of honour," said I, "and I should greatly prefer that a man of more experience took a thing like this in hand; but I can quite believe that your official position – "

"Official position be damned!" said the Chief Constable. "If you honestly think I shall be of more use than you, there is no more to be said. We are here to make ourselves useful and we must see this thing through."

"Very well, I will look after the Princess, and you go to the ballroom and do what you can to save the situation."

CHAPTER XIV
A DEPLORABLE INCIDENT

It was with a feeling akin to despair that I saw Coverdale follow the others up the stairs. In the first place my own position was invidious. But there was nothing to be done. It was beyond question that Fitz must have a tried man like Coverdale at his elbow, whilst also it was necessary that a person with some pretensions to responsibility should take charge of the lady who was safely outside in the electric brougham. Yet, uppermost in my thoughts, was a more insistent care. The affair had taken a very ugly turn. Fitz had shown himself to be a man who did not stick at trifles, whilst von Arlenberg, unless his manner belied him, was cast in a similar mould. It was therefore with some uneasiness that I went to offer my services to her Royal Highness. That distinguished personage was seated greatly at her ease, yet with a slight frown upon her somewhat imperious countenance.

"Where is Nefil?" said she.

"I have to tell you, ma'am," said I, "that Mr. Fitzwaren is – er – discussing certain important matters with his Excellency, and that if it is agreeable to you he desires me to accompany you to your hotel."

"What are the matters?" Her gaze in its directness seemed to pass right through me.

"There are – er – certain details that have to be adjusted."

"Well, I hope Nefil will be able to shoot straight."

Whether I was more taken aback by the cynicism of the remark or by its sagacity, it would be fruitless to inquire. But to this pious hope I had nothing to add; and I stood feeling decidedly uncomfortable at the door of the car. There was no room in front by the side of the chauffeur, and I had received no invitation to take a seat within.

The pause was awkward, but somehow there seemed to be no help for it.

"Well?" said the lady, not without a suspicion of acerbity.

Even that I could not take for an invitation to get in. I stood acutely conscious that my embarrassment told against me.

"Aha, les Anglais!" The malice was not too genial. "Would you haf me open the door?"

I told the chauffeur to drive to the Savoy, and took the proffered seat by the side of the Crown Princess of Illyria.

The discovery has no claim to be original, but in order to find out what a woman really is, one should sit with her alone and tête-à-tête. The opportunity for frankness is not likely to be neglected upon either side, since a display of that engaging quality upon the one part seems automatically to evoke it on the other.

No sooner was I seated by the side of Mrs. Fitz than I felt more at ease. She was so sentient, so responsive; a creature who, beneath the trenchant reserve of her manner, was alive in every nerve.

She patted my knees with her fan.

"Aha, les Anglais!" In the light of the lamps, I thought her eyes were like stars. "So brave, so honest and so bête– I love them all!"

The spell of her presence seemed to overpower me.

"My brave Nefil will kill him, will he not?"

"I fear," said I, "that one of them will not see to-morrow."

"Indeed, yes; it cannot be otherwise."

Her calmness amazed me. And yet there was nothing callous or unnatural in it. Perhaps it might be described as the outward expression of an imperial nature. At least that was the impression that I gained. When her servants drew their swords in her cause they must not look for a prick in the arm. Let them prepare to stake their lives and to yield them gladly. I shivered slightly; it was barbarous that a woman could thus offer the father of her children to the gods, yet it was sublime.

All too soon we arrived at the restaurant where Fitz had ordered supper for seven. The place was filling up rapidly after the theatres. We sat on a sofa in the foyer to wait for our party; I with an acute anxiety and a sense of foreboding that held me tongue-tied; my companion with a detachment of mind that in the circumstances seemed almost inhuman. For her sake a man was being done to death; one whom she loved, or one whom her father honoured. But whatever Fate's decree, her nature was schooled to the point of submission.

Seated by my side in the foyer, she subjected the throng of returning playgoers to a frankly humorous and malicious scrutiny. These English who were so bête amused her vastly. The clothes they wore, the airs they gave themselves, the things they did and the things they refrained from doing, not a detail escaped that audaciously frank, that alertly curious intelligence.

"Your women are not as you, you fine, big English good dogs," she said, bestowing another indulgent pat upon my knees. "Les Anglaises, how prim and pinched they are, what dresses they wear, and how they do walk! But I adore vos jolis hommes: was ever such distinction, such charm, such stupidity! Mon père shall have an English regiment. I will raise it myself, and be its colonel."

Her laughter was deep and rich and full of malice. Even I, stupid and stricken with fear as I was, was yet sufficiently indiscreet to attempt to seize the opportunity.

"It will be the easiest thing in the world, ma'am. Have you not raised it already?"

Another indulgent pat was my reward.

"Très bon enfant! Quel esprit! You shall sit by my side when we eat."

Her ridicule had a velvet sheath, but even an Englishman, who felt as miserably ineffectual as did I, was susceptible of the thrust.

It is difficult for the average Briton, acutely conscious that he is enduring the patronage of a superior, to be easy, graceful and natural in his bearing; to say the appropriate things in the appropriate way, and to carry off the situation lightly. Every moment that I sat by the side of her Royal Highness in the centre of the public gaze, I felt my position to be growing more invidious. The pose of my companion seemed to become more Olympian; while if I ventured a half-hearted riposte or a timid pleasantry, I suffered for it; or if I remained silent and respectful – and that after all is the only course to take in the presence of our betters – I furnished an additional example of the heaviness of my countrymen.

I came to the conclusion that the less I said the better it would fare with my over-sensitive dignity, but even the utterance of an occasional monosyllable did not save me.

"When I hear the big dogs growl, the English masteefs, I say to myself, 'Ah, the dear fellows, how excellently they speak the language!'"

Unless one springs from the Chosen Race, it takes more than three generations to produce a courtier. I felt myself to be growing stiffer and generally more infelicitous in my demeanour. And then, as if to complete my overthrow, there entered the foyer a supper-party, whose appearance on the scene I could only regard with horror.

Who has not felt that among the astral bodies there is a malign power, a kind of Court Dramatist, who arranges sinister coincidences and mischievous surprises for us humble denizens below, in order to divert the privileged onlookers sitting in heaven? The supper-party which came into our midst, which looked as though it had been to see "The Importance of Being Earnest," and had been shocked by its reprehensible levity, consisted of Dumbarton, our illustrious neighbour, "dear Evelyn" high of coiffure and robed in pink satin, the august Mrs. Catesby, and the highly respectable George, with one or two others of minor importance as far as this narrative is concerned, although in other spheres not prone to yield pride of place to anybody.

It was clear from the rigid, slow and undeviating manner in which the ducal party walked past our sofa, that we were discovered. Mrs. Catesby, in particular, gazed down her nose with really awful solemnity; George, the highly respectable, wearing his Quarter Sessions expression; Dumbarton, looking like a Royal Duke painted in oils; and "dear Evelyn," his pink-robed spouse, a really admirable picture of what can be achieved in the way of high-bred hauteur. I can only say that, speaking for myself, I addressed a humble prayer to heaven that the floor might open and let me through.

A chill of apprehension settled upon me. I sat very close, not daring to move an eyelid.

Alas! as the procession filed past, there arose a note of derision; a clear, resonant, bell-like note.

"Ach, pink! Pink in dis climate and wis dat complexion!"

Even the chef de reception was compelled to follow the example of Mrs. Catesby of looking down his nose with really awful solemnity.

The sweat sprang to my miserable forehead. I never have a nightmare now without I dream of pink satin. The ducal party passed beyond our ken, leaving me shattered utterly and more than ever at the mercy of my companion. However, to my relief, the "Stormy Petrel" began to betray a care in regard to her husband. It began to seem that the aim of his adversary had been the straighter.

Fitz was certainly a desperate fellow, and my intercourse with the lady whom he had prevailed upon to share his name rendered that aspect of his character the more clear. What enormous grit the man must have to abduct such a lioness and to attempt to keep house with her upon a basis of equality. But had he met his overthrow at last? Had he tempted fate once too often? The hands of the clock were creeping on towards midnight.

"Nefil has missed his aim." The voice of the Princess trembled.

Almost immediately, however, this was proved to be not the case. There were further arrivals in the foyer; five men entered together, and the first of these was Fitz.

It may have been the fault of my overwrought fancy, but it seemed to me that each of the five was looking excited and pale. My companion rose to receive them. "It is well," she said. "It is well." She turned to Fitz, who looked ghastly, and extended her hand with a gesture that I can only compare to that of Medusa. Fitz bore the hand to his lips.

"What happened?" I said to Coverdale in a hoarse whisper.

"Don't ask!" he said, half turning away.

"Do you mean – " I said; but the sentence died in my throat.

The invasion of the supper-room was a pretty grave ordeal to have to face. The stress of that day, woven of the very tissue of excitement, had told upon me; and again I was in the grip of a nameless fear. Instead of following in the train of Mrs. Fitz into the glare of a too notorious publicity, I wanted to run away and hide myself.

The room was crowded with people who were there to see and to be seen. We had to make our way past a number of tables to one reserved for us at the far end of the room. In the middle of our progress, like a lion in the gate, was the ducal party toying elegantly with quails and champagne.

Each member of her Royal Highness's bodyguard, including the indomitable O'Mulligan, was looking downcast and unhappy and far from his best. But the lady herself, in bearing and in manner, made no secret of her status. She was the Heiress-Apparent to Europe's oldest monarchy condescending to eat in the midst of barbarians.

It was clear that the ducal party was fully determined to take an extreme course. By the animation of its conversation and its assiduous regard for quails and champagne, it evidently hoped to make the fact quite plain that our privacy would be respected if only we had the decency to extend a like indulgence to theirs.

Alas! in certain kinds of warfare there are no sanctities.

"Ach, pink!" said Mrs. Fitz, in that voice which had such a terrible quality of penetration. "Can any one tell me why pink – ?"

The nervous fancy of a married man, a father of a family, and a county member, seemed to detect a titter from the adjoining tables. Coverdale pressed forward sombrely. Her Royal Highness, instinct with a ruthless and humorous disdain, went forward too. Fitz, however, lingered a moment, and touched his distinguished neighbour upon the shoulder with incredible Napoleonic heartiness.

"Hullo, Duke!" he said.

"How are you, Fitzwaren?" said the great man, in a voice that seemed to come out of his shoes.

"Never mind the Missus!" said the Man of Destiny, with a comic half-cock of the left eye at the patrician aspect of her Grace. "It's only her fun."

The man's effrontery, his cynicism, his absence of taste, were staggering. But what a sublime courage the fellow had. On he sauntered, with his hands buried in his pockets, in the wake of Coverdale and her Royal Highness. Brasset and I, walking delicately, were crowding upon his heels, when what can only be described as a peremptory and insistent hiss recalled us to the danger zone.

"Reggie! Odo Arbuthnot!"

We proffered a forlorn salute to the most august of her sex.

"Beg pardon, Mrs. Catesby, didn't see you, y'know."

Brasset's apologetic feebleness was in singular and painful contrast to the epic breadth of the inconceivable Fitz.

"Don't dare to offer me a word, either of you," said the Great Lady, in a whisper of Homeric truculence. "You are committing the act of social suicide. When I think of your mother, Reggie, and of your wife and daughter, Odo Arbuthnot, I – but I will say nothing. But it is social suicide for all of you, including that fatuous police constable."

The flesh cannot endure more than a given amount of suffering, although the measure of its capacity is so terrible. But whatever it was, I was already past it.

"Pink is certainly a trying colour," I whispered.

"Dear Evelyn will never forgive it. Have none of you a sense of decency? It is madness!"