“What’s the matter, my dear?” cried the host, rushing forward and kneeling to support the apparently agonized youth in his arms.
“Oh, my foot!” Raymond wailed. “I’ve trodden on something.”
“He’s trodden on a thorn. He’s trodden on a thorn,” everybody said at once.
Raymond was borne tenderly to a divan, and was so much petted that Sydney became jealous and began to dance again, this time on the top of the piano. Presently everybody else began to dance, and Mr. Corydon would have liked to dance with Sylvia; but she declined. Gondoliers entered with trays of liqueurs, and Sylvia, tasting crème de menthe for the first time, found it so good that she drank four glasses, which made her feel rather drowsy. New guests were continually arriving, to whom she did not pay much attention until suddenly she recognized the baron with Godfrey Hurndale, who at the same moment recognized her. The baron rushed forward and seized Sylvia’s arm. She thought he was going to drag her back by force to Mrs. Meares to answer for the missing rent, but he began to arch his unoccupied arm like an excited swan, and call out in his high, mincing voice:
“Blackmailers-s-s! blackmailers-s-s!”
“They blackmailed me out of four hundred pounds,” said Hurndale.
“Who brought him here?” the baron cried. “It’s-s-s true. Godfrey has been persecuted by these horrid people. Blackmailers-s-s!”
All the other guests gathered round Sylvia and behaved like angry women trying to mount an omnibus. Mr. Corydon had turned very pale and was counting his visiting-cards. Sylvia could not understand the reason for all this noise; but vaguely through a green mist of crème de menthe she understood that she was being attacked on all sides and began to get annoyed. Somebody pinched her arm, and without waiting to see who it was she hit the nearest person within reach, who happened to be Mr. Corydon. His visiting-cards fell on the floor, and he groveled on the carpet trying to sweep them together. Sylvia followed her attack on Mr. Corydon by treading hard on Sydney’s bare toes, who thereupon slapped her face; presently everybody was pushing her and pinching her and hustling her, until she got in such a rage and kicked so furiously that her enemies retired.
“Who brought him here?” Godfrey Hurndale was demanding. “I tell you he belongs to a gang of blackmailers.”
“Most dreadful people,” the baron echoed.