She could hardly grasp any tangible idea just at present, she was so completely dazed. It was as if Mrs. Durand had let off a catherine-wheel in her face.
Mr. Lisle an Honourable! Mr. Lisle immensely rich! Mr. Lisle, whom she had offered to pay for his photographs, whom she had never met without severely snubbing. And all the time he was the son of a lord, and she had unconsciously lost a matchless opportunity of cementing a lifelong friendship with one of the aristocracy. Alas, for poor Mrs. Creery, her mind was chaos!
After the storm there ensued the proverbial calm; the piano was opened, and people tried to look at ease, and to pretend, forsooth, that they were not thinking of the recent grand engagement, but it was all a hollow sham.
Helen, if it had been in her power, would have endowed that brave woman, Mrs. Durand, with a Victoria Cross for valour, and, indeed, every lady present secretly offered her a personal meed of admiration and gratitude. She had slain their dragon, who would never more dare to rear her head and tyrannize over the present or vilify the absent. Surely there should be some kind of domestic decoration accorded to those who arm themselves with moral courage, and go forth and rescue the reputation of their friends.
Miss Caggett sat in the background, looking unusually grave and gloomy, no doubt thinking with remorseful stings of her lost opportunities. Dr. Malone grinned and nodded, and rubbed his rather large bony hands ecstatically, and whispered to Captain Rodney that "he had always had a notion that Lisle the photographer was a prince in disguise!"
As for Mrs. Creery, as before mentioned, that truculent lady was absolutely shattered; she resembled an ill constructed automaton who had been knocked down and then set up limply in a chair, or a woman in a dream—and that a bad one. After a while she spoke in a strangely subdued voice, and said,—
"General, I don't feel very well; that coffee of yours has given me a terrible headache. If you will send for my jampan, I'll just go quietly home."
Thus she withdrew, with a pitiable remnant of her former dignity, her host escorting her politely to the entrance, and placing her in her chair with faint regrets. Every one knew perfectly well, that it was not the General's coffee that had routed Mrs. Creery, it was she whose beautiful contralto was now filling the drawing-room as her late antagonist tottered down the steps—it was that valiant lady, Mrs. Durand!