"Oh, my dear Edward, nobody wants to insult anybody," said Mrs. Claudie. "Please let us go to the cocoanuts."
But Lord Potter's temper had been aroused by the challenge. "I have nothing to do with you or your father," he said disagreeably. "You have both unclassed yourselves. You can keep what company you please, as far as I am concerned. But when you take into your house a highly suspicious character, you ought to keep him to yourselves, and not foist him on to respectable company."
Edward was about to reply hotly, but I didn't want to leave my case in his hands; he knew too much about me, and might give it away in his unthinking annoyance.
"How do you know I am staying with Mr. Perry?" I asked quickly. "You pretended just now to be surprised to find I was that Howard. And yet you heard my name when we first met, and you saw me go away with Mr. Perry."
"I will settle with you later, sir," he said furiously. "You have been going about in expensive clothes, and I have reason to believe you are an impostor, and are wanted by the police."
"Oh, do leave off and come to the cocoanuts," cried poor Mrs. Claudie, desolated at the prospect of a disturbance. But the situation was now beyond her.
"Perhaps you will say that my father and I are impostors, because we go about in clean clothes," said Edward angrily. "Mr. Howard is studying social conditions, as we are. He is a gentleman, as anyone can see, whatever he chooses to wear."
Perhaps it is rather conceited of me to mention it, but there were murmurs of approval here. In my old Norfolk jacket and weather-beaten hat, I must have appeared all that was desirable in the matter of fashionable attire, according to Upsidonian standards.
Encouraged by these murmurs, I stuck to my point with Lord Potter. "Will you answer a plain question?" I asked him. "Did you know who I was when you came and tried to break up this delightful party, or did you tell Mrs. Chanticleer a lie?"