Not that she did not thoroughly enjoy going out to battle upon the most mundane of material planes.  A born fighter, she would plunge into the strife for the sheer love of fighting and would take the bull by the horns or the man by the scruff of his neck and lay about her right heartily with her stout ebony stick backed by verbal blows from her vitriolic tongue.

Well, if we all rested for one hour, even for one minute, out of the twenty-four during the frantic passing of modern days, what a boon we should grant our neighbours!

And as the duchess sat quietly, with Dekko the parrot fast asleep upon the back of her chair, as becomes a well-conducted bird, Fate crept up behind and dropped the black thread of hate and the purple thread of grief amongst the others she had tossed into the old lady’s lap.

She suddenly sat upright with a shiver.

Qatim the Ethiopian lifted the body of a woman from out the gutter, and the messenger from the Oasis of Khargegh strode through the gateway of the hotel and kicked the somnolent ghafir or watchman, who coughed discreetly behind the sleeping night-porter’s back.

And when Hobson, some time later, entered the bedroom with her grace’s early cup of tea, which included an egg and fruit, she said nothing of the terrible story which had run like wildfire through the servants’ quarters and had turned her cold with horror.

Hobson was an autocrat in her own domain and ruled with a cast-iron rod.

“Don’t you utter one word of this disgusting tale to her grace,” she had said fiercely as she had sailed through the door of the ladies-maids’ room, held meekly open for her by one of the under-maids, who had been caught gossiping, “or back you go to England, both of you.”  She turned back into the room and rattled the tray to emphasise her orders.  “I won’t have my lady troubled with it, d’you hear?  Common circus trash! what has it got to do with you, I should like to know, if she’s been killed or not?  That’s what they all come to, as you’ll find out, if you don’t take care.”

She had swept from the room leaving the plump, rosy-cheeked Devonshire lasses trembling.

Many, many years ago the duchess had taken the bright, intelligent daughter of a Devonshire farmer on the estate into her service; trained her and promoted her as her seniors in the lady’s service had married or been pensioned off, until she had finally risen to the post of head maid and confidential companion.

Love and marriage had passed Maria Hobson by, but she adored her mistress and constituted herself as dragon, sheep-dog and buffer, so as to save her from unpleasantness or pain; at the same time issuing orders as to health and hours which her grace usually meekly obeyed—­though you would not have taken a bet upon it with any feeling of security.

It is curious, the ascendancy which such a type of maid can obtain over a strong-willed mistress.  Think of Abigail Hill and the influence she had over Queen Anne, which finally ousted the great Sarah Jennings, Duchess of Marlborough, brought disturbance into English politics and ruin to the fortune of the Jacobites.