"Tell her," the virago screamed, "that I am the woman whom you tried to murder, in order that you might be free——"
Here the harangue was cut short by a policeman, who knew the orator very well by sight, and who deftly interposed his arm at the moment when Cora was reaching the climax of her rage. At the same instant the cab drew up, and Lettice was driven away with her friends, not, however, before she had forced Alan to take her hand, and had wished him good-night.
"That must have been his wife," said Clara, whose face was white, and who was trembling violently.
"Yes, confound her!" said her husband, much annoyed by what had happened.
"Could you not stay to see what happens? You might be of some use to Mr. Walcott."
"What good can I do? I wish we had not met him. I have a horror of these scenes; some people, apparently, take them more coolly."
He was out of temper with Lettice, first for sitting by Alan at the conversazione, and then for ostentatiously shaking hands with him on the pavement. Her instinct told her what he was thinking.
"I am sorry it happened," she said; "but when a man is unfortunate one need not take the opportunity of punishing him. It was far worse for him than for us."
"I don't see that," said Graham. "And everyone has to bear his own troubles. Besides, why should a man with such a frightful infliction attach himself to ladies in a public place, and subject them to insult, without so much as warning them what they might expect to meet with?"
"Were you unwarned?"