“Only a short while ago.”

“Then that’s what’s happened.  She would have bought an evening paper to read in the train.  By Jove, I wonder if she got hold of the one that had the poem about it.  One chappie was so carried away by the beauty of the episode that he treated it in verse.  I think we ought to look in and see what’s happening.”

Maud hesitated again.  But she was a girl of spirit.  And she had an intuition that her best defence would be attack.  Bluff was what was needed.  Wide-eyed, innocent wonder . . .  After all, Percy couldn’t be certain he had seen her in Piccadilly.

“All right.”

“By the way, dear old girl,” inquired Reggie, “did your little business come out satisfactorily?  I forgot to ask.”

“Not very.  But it was awfully sweet of you to take me into town.”

“How would it be,” said Reggie nervously, “not to dwell too much on that part of it?  What I mean to say is, for heaven’s sake don’t let the mater know I rallied round.”

“Don’t worry,” said Maud with a laugh.  “I’m not going to talk about the thing at all.”

Lord Belpher, meanwhile, in the library, had begun with the aid of a whisky and soda to feel a little better.  There was something about the library with its sombre half tones that soothed his bruised spirit.  The room held something of the peace of a deserted city.  The world, with its violent adventures and tall policemen, did not enter here.  There was balm in those rows and rows of books which nobody ever read, those vast writing tables at which nobody ever wrote.  From the broad mantel-piece the bust of some unnamed ancient looked down almost sympathetically.  Something remotely resembling peace had begun to steal into Percy’s soul, when it was expelled by the abrupt opening of the door and the entry of Lady Caroline Byng and his father.  One glance at the face of the former was enough to tell Lord Belpher that she knew all.

He rose defensively.

“Let me explain.”

Lady Caroline quivered with repressed emotion.  This masterly woman had not lost control of herself, but her aristocratic calm had seldom been so severely tested.  As Reggie had surmised, she had read the report of the proceedings in the evening paper in the train, and her world had been reeling ever since.  Caesar, stabbed by Brutus, could scarcely have experienced a greater shock.  The other members of her family had disappointed her often.  She had become inured to the spectacle of her brother working in the garden in corduroy trousers and in other ways behaving in a manner beneath the dignity of an Earl of Marshmoreton.  She had resigned herself to the innate flaw in the character of Maud which had allowed her to fall in love with a nobody whom she had met without an introduction.  Even Reggie had exhibited at times democratic traits of which she thoroughly disapproved.  But of her nephew Percy she had always been sure.  He was solid rock.