Out it rolled, one repetition after another, over the ancient oak-trees of Brayle Manor. Lady Brayle put her hands over her face.
"Sophie," growled H.M., taking the cigar out of his mouth, "you come to this window and wave your hand at 'em. Don't say anything, or I'll wring your neck. Just wave."
"Henry, you fiend!" said Lady Brayle.
"Uh-huh. But you do what I tell you."
Lady Brayle got up, shaking and adjusting her shoulders, and moved over to the window. Beyond the sky showed dull, almost lead-coloured, with the red geraniums in their flowerpots against it Lady Brayle lifted her arm in the manner of one unaccustomed to do so.
When she returned to her chair, after the tumult subsided, she was still half-dazed.
"As — as the car went up the drive," she said, "I confess I was stunned. I… I could only make some response, as a matter of courtesy, by waving this.
"At the terrace mere were calls for 'speech.' This, naturally, was a duty I could fulfil admirably. I was about to do so, when my attention was attracted by a revolting noise from that window there. I looked up, and saw projecting from the window a quite horrible face, which I discerned to be Henry's. He was holding a flower-pot.
"He informed me (pray forgive me for repeating such words) that, if I were to speak one word of what I had intended to speak, he would drop the goddam flower-pot on what he described as my onion.
"The fiend told me to do only what he called my routine, which I have always considered somewhat graceful. It consists in calling for three cheers, and taking two steps backwards while raising my hand. I… I confess that the volume of the cheering: I never heard it before."