It was just the flippant tone needed to bring us back to earth again. Everybody laughed. Everybody was so relieved that the laugh was unconventionally loud, and it had a tendency to overdo itself.
Then we trotted out the "well-I-nevers!"
"Did you ever hear such a lot of rubbish talk?" demanded Lady Helen.
"It quite took my breath away," said Miss Ottley with a gallant effort to attain the correct, approved, sociably foolish affectation of brainlessness.
"The fellow deserves three months without the option for his villainous slanders," said the Captain heartily. He was honest, anyhow. "Lord knows I can't stand Belleville at any price," he continued. "But Navarro went a bit too far, by Gad! I never heard anything more malicious in my life than his vile insinuations."
"A discharged servant," I observed. "Malice was to be expected from one of Navarro's type."
"And a foreigner to boot," said the Captain, in the manner of one absolutely clinching an argument. "Ah, well!" he suppressed a yawn, "he entertained us—and that's something. Seen the 'Japanese Marriage' yet, Lady Helen? Miss Ottley and I did an act or two last night. It's ripping. So—ah! so jolly unusual, don't you know. You get left every time you think something is going to happen; and when you least expect it one of the funny little beggars ups and wants to make his friend a present of his liver on a plate, or cut off his rival's head, or something."
"Miss Ottley's carriage," announced a footman.
"I asked for it," said the girl to Lady Helen. "My father has been very poorly all day."
Weldon went away with her. She did not even spare me a glance.