"I was never so upset in my life!" said Lady Caroline.

　　She had been saying the same thing and many other things for thepast five minutes. Until the departure of the last guest she hadkept an icy command of herself and shown an unruffled front to theworld. She had even contrived to smile. But now, with the finalautomobile whirring homewards, she had thrown off the mask. Thevery furniture of Lord Marshmoreton's study seemed to shrink, searedby the flame of her wrath. As for Lord Marshmoreton himself, helooked quite shrivelled.

　　It had not been an easy matter to bring her erring brother to bay.

　　The hunt had been in progress full ten minutes before she and LordBelpher finally cornered the poor wretch. His plea, through thekeyhole of the locked door, that he was working on the familyhistory and could not be disturbed, was ignored; and now he wasface to face with the avengers.

　　"I cannot understand it," continued Lady Caroline. "You know thatfor months we have all been straining every nerve to break off thishorrible entanglement, and, just as we had begun to hope thatsomething might be done, you announce the engagement in the mostpublic manner. I think you must be out of your mind. I can hardlybelieve even now that this appalling thing has happened. I amhoping that I shall wake up and find it is all a nightmare. How youcan have done such a thing, I cannot understand.""Quite!" said Lord Belpher.

　　If Lady Caroline was upset, there are no words in the language thatwill adequately describe the emotions of Percy.

　　From the very start of this lamentable episode in high life, Percyhad been in the forefront of the battle. It was Percy who had hadhis best hat smitten from his head in the full view of allPiccadilly. It was Percy who had suffered arrest and imprisonmentin the cause. It was Percy who had been crippled for days owing tohis zeal in tracking Maud across country. And now all hissufferings were in vain. He had been betrayed by his own father.

　　There was, so the historians of the Middle West tell us, a man ofChicago named Young, who once, when his nerves were unstrung, puthis mother (unseen) in the chopping-machine, and canned her andlabelled her "Tongue". It is enough to say that the glance ofdisapproval which Percy cast upon his father at this juncture wouldhave been unduly severe if cast by the Young offspring upon theirparent at the moment of confession.

　　Lord Marshmoreton had rallied from his initial panic. The spirit ofrevolt began to burn again in his bosom. Once the die is cast forrevolution, there can be no looking back. One must defy, notapologize. Perhaps the inherited tendencies of a line of ancestorswho, whatever their shortcomings, had at least known how to treattheir women folk, came to his aid. Possibly there stood by his sidein this crisis ghosts of dead and buried Marshmoretons, whisperingspectral encouragement in his ear--the ghosts, let us suppose, ofthat earl who, in the days of the seventh Henry, had stabbed hiswife with a dagger to cure her tendency to lecture him at night; orof that other earl who, at a previous date in the annals ............