He vanished. Lord Belpher frowned a sombre frown. "Then it was that man who knocked my hat off?"
"What do you mean?" said Lady Caroline. "Knocked your hat off? You never told me he knocked your hat off."
"It was when I was asking him to let me look inside the cab. I had grasped the handle of the door, when he suddenly struck my hat, causing it to fly off. And, while I was picking it up, he drove away."
"C"k," exploded Lord Marshmoreton. "C"k, c"k, c"k." He twisted his face by a supreme exertion of will power into a mask of indignation. "You ought to have had the scoundrel arrested," he said vehemently. "It was a technical a.s.sault."
"The man who knocked your hat off, Percy," said Maud, "was not ... He was a different man altogether. A stranger."
"As if you would be in a cab with a stranger," said Lady Caroline caustically. "There are limits, I hope, to even your indiscretions."
Lord Marshmoreton cleared his throat. He was sorry for Maud, whom he loved.
"Now, looking at the matter broadly--"
"Be quiet," said Lady Caroline.
Lord Marshmoreton subsided.
"I wanted to avoid you," said Maud, "so I jumped into the first cab I saw."
"I don"t believe it," said Percy.
"It"s the truth."
"You are simply trying to put us off the scent."
Lady Caroline turned to Maud. Her manner was plaintive. She looked like a martyr at the stake who deprecatingly lodges a timid complaint, fearful the while lest she may be hurting the feelings of her persecutors by appearing even for a moment out of sympathy with their activities.
"My dear child, why will you not be reasonable in this matter? Why will you not let yourself be guided by those who are older and wiser than you?"
"Exactly," said Lord Belpher.
"The whole thing is too absurd."
"Precisely," said Lord Belpher.
Lady Caroline turned on him irritably.
"Please do not interrupt, Percy. Now, you"ve made me forget what I was going to say."
"To my mind," said Lord Marshmoreton, coming to the surface once more, "the proper att.i.tude to adopt on occasions like the present--"
"Please," said Lady Caroline.
Lord Marshmoreton stopped, and resumed his silent communion with the stuffed bird.
"You can"t stop yourself being in love, Aunt Caroline," said Maud.
"You can be stopped if you"ve somebody with a level head looking after you."
Lord Marshmoreton tore himself away from the bird.
"Why, when I was at Oxford in the year "87," he said chattily, "I fancied myself in love with the female a.s.sistant at a tobacconist shop. Desperately in love, dammit. Wanted to marry her. I recollect my poor father took me away from Oxford and kept me here at Belpher under lock and key. Lock and key, dammit. I was deucedly upset at the time, I remember." His mind wandered off into the glorious past. "I wonder what that girl"s name was. Odd one can"t remember names. She had chestnut hair and a mole on the side of her chin. I used to kiss it, I recollect--"
Lady Caroline, usually such an advocate of her brother"s researches into the family history, cut the reminiscences short.
"Never mind that now."
"I don"t. I got over it. That"s the moral."
"Well," said Lady Caroline, "at any rate poor father acted with great good sense on that occasion. There seems nothing to do but to treat Maud in just the same way. You shall not stir a step from the castle till you have got over this dreadful infatuation. You will be watched."
"I shall watch you," said Lord Belpher solemnly, "I shall watch your every movement."
A dreamy look came into Maud"s brown eyes.
"Stone walls do not a prison make nor iron bars a cage," she said softly.
"That wasn"t your experience, Percy, my boy," said Lord Marshmoreton.
"They make a very good imitation," said Lady Caroline coldly, ignoring the interruption.
Maud faced her defiantly. She looked like a princess in captivity facing her gaolers.
"I don"t care. I love him, and I always shall love him, and nothing is ever going to stop me loving him--because I love him," she concluded a little lamely.
"Nonsense," said Lady Caroline. "In a year from now you will have forgotten his name. Don"t you agree with me, Percy?"
"Quite," said Lord Belpher.
"I shan"t."
"Deuced hard things to remember, names," said Lord Marshmoreton.
"If I"ve tried once to remember that tobacconist girl"s name, I"ve tried a hundred times. I have an idea it began with an "L." Muriel or Hilda or something."
"Within a year," said Lady Caroline, "you will be wondering how you ever came to be so foolish. Don"t you think so, Percy?"
"Quite," said Lord Belpher.
Lord Marshmoreton turned on him irritably.
"Good G.o.d, boy, can"t you answer a simple question with a plain affirmative? What do you mean--quite? If somebody came to me and pointed you out and said, "Is that your son?" do you suppose I should say "Quite?" I wish the devil you didn"t collect prayer rugs. It"s sapped your brain."
"They say prison life often weakens the intellect, father," said Maud. She moved towards the door and turned the handle. Albert, the page boy, who had been courting earache by listening at the keyhole, straightened his small body and scuttled away. "Well, is that all, Aunt Caroline? May I go now?"
"Certainly. I have said all I wished to say."