"Please, your ladyship," he replied, with difficulty restraining his laughter, "it won't go."
"Will not go?"
"No, my lady; it's been rampaging through the greenhouses, and is now on the terrace, where it douched Anne most awful."
"Leave me at once, Bright, and do not let me see you again till you are in a more decent state," she commanded, and swept by him, ignoring his protestations of innocence and respect.
She found Scarsdale awaiting her in the reception-room, and accorded him a very frigid greeting, suggesting that they should have their interview on the terrace, where he had left Mrs. Allingford safely ensconced in an armchair, while he went to meet his great-aunt.
Her ladyship had been considerably ruffled both by her interview with Bright and by the arrival of Scarsdale, towards whom, in the light of recent events, she felt a strong resentment; and a vision of the Consul's wife perched most indecorously on the shoulders of Hercules, which she beheld as she emerged on the terrace, did not tend to calm her already excited nerves. But before she could speak her eyes followed the direction of the unknown lady's gaze, and she saw, for the first time, her unwelcome visitor.
When you come suddenly face to face with an elephant seated amidst the wreck of cherished Chippendale and ancestral Sèvres, it is not calculated to increase your composure or equalise your temper; and Lady Diana may be pardoned, as the vastness of the Consul's impudence dawned upon her, for giving vent to expressions both of anger and amazement, albeit her appearance produced no less of a disturbance in the breast of him who sat amidst the ruins of the breakfast-table. The elephant felt that in the presence of the Maharanee, for such he believed her to be, his position was undignified. She was, without doubt, the wife of the "Damconsul," and, as such, should be paid all proper respect and deference. He, therefore, bowed his head in submission, completing in the process his work of destruction. Whereat Mrs. Allingford shrieked and clung more closely to the protecting shoulders of Hercules.
Serious as the situation was, it was not without its humorous side, and it took all Scarsdale's command of himself to control his face sufficiently to address his relative with becoming respect.
"Why, aunt," he said, "I didn't know that you had gone in for pets!"
"Harold Stanley Malcolm St. Hubart Scarsdale," replied her ladyship—she prided herself on never forgetting a name—"you are one of the most impudent and worthless young men that I have the honour to count among my relatives; but you have been in India, and you ought to know how to manage this monster."