“Excellent Nutmeg! What a story! You have been having toasted cheese for supper, sure!—Listen, good people: some one has been trying to break into Margery’s sacred chamber. Oh, fie, Mrs. Nutmeg!”
Her pale lips seemed withered with her forced merriment as she turned upon the trio still sitting round the green cloth. The gamblers halted in their renewed wrangle to give her an impatient attention. Little Priscilla, arrested in a yawn, twisted a small weary face over her shoulder to stare.
“Not my chamber,” said Mrs. Nutmeg, raising her voice slightly, but otherwise quite unmoved.
“Not yours.”
“No, my lady—the chamber over mine.”
“Mrs. Marvel’s!”
And once more Maud Lochore’s hysterical mirth broke forth. The next instant it was suddenly hushed, and stillness fell again upon them. Priscilla rose from the table and came forward three steps impetuously, then halted, crimsoning to the roots of her hair, clasping and unclasping her hands. The Dishonourable Caroline looked at her daughter for a second with a pale, hard eye, then said in a repressive tone curiously at variance with the meaning of her words:
“Thieves and housebreakers; we shall all be murdered in our beds! Let the men be called! Let search be made! Come, Priscilla.” She slowly waddled round to the girl’s side. “You shall remain in my room till the miscreants are captured. No doubt some of the gentlemen would stay within call.”
“The gentlemen—where are they?” asked Lady Lochore. Then bending her brow darkly on Margery: “But why did you not call the men?” she asked.
Margery pleated her apron.