"And now if you have anything to say, Madame Gordeloup," said Sir Hugh, looking at the silver covers which were hiding the chops and the asparagus, and looking also at his watch, "perhaps you will be good enough to say it."
"Anything to say! Yes, Sir 'Oo, I have something to say. It is a pity you will not sit at your dinner."
"I will not sit at my dinner till you have left me. So now, if you will be pleased to proceed—"
"I will proceed. Perhaps you don't know that Lord Ongar died in these arms?" And Sophie, as she spoke, stretched out her skinny hands, and put herself as far as possible into the attitude in which it would be most convenient to nurse the head of a dying man upon her bosom. Sir Hugh, thinking to himself that Lord Ongar could hardly have received much consolation in his fate from this incident, declared that he had not heard the fact before. "No; you have not heard it. She have tell nothing to her friends here. He die abroad, and she has come back with all the money; but she tell nothing to anybody here, so I must tell."
"But I don't care how he died, Madame Gordeloup. It is nothing to me."
"But yes, Sir 'Oo. The lady, your wife, is the sister to Lady Ongar. Is not that so? Lady Ongar did live with you before she was married. Is not that so? Your brother and your cousin both wishes to marry her and have all the money. Is not that so? Your brother has come to me to help him, and has sent the little man out of Warwickshire. Is not that so?"
"What the d—— is all that to me?" said Sir Hugh, who did not quite understand the story as the lady was telling it.
"I will explain, Sir 'Oo, what the d—— it is to you; only I wish you were eating the nice things on the table. This Lady Ongar is treating me very bad. She treat my brother very bad too. My brother is Count Pateroff. We have been put to—oh, such expenses for her! It have nearly ruined me. I make a journey to your London here altogether for her. Then, for her, I go down to that accursed little island;—what you call it?—where she insult me. Oh! all my time is gone. Your brother and your cousin, and the little man out of Warwickshire, all coming to my house,—just as it please them."
"But what is this to me?" shouted Sir Hugh.
"A great deal to you," screamed back Madame Gordeloup. "You see I know everything,—everything. I have got papers."