“My dear,” he said, “this is most fortunate. You can do me a little service. Listen. When I was last at Ruth—about four years ago, I sent a good-looking pair of bed-socks to the Castle dairy. Well, I had to go before the wash came back, and in spite of repeated applications to His Grace the Duke of Culloden my property has never been restored. Now, when you get there, go through his rotten things, and——”
“The Duke of Culloden?” cried Susan. “But . . .” The sentence died there, and she looked from one to the other with fright in her eyes. Then she addressed her swain. “Are you,” she breathed, “are you the Duke of Culloden?”
“Yes, dear,” said Nicholas John.
To style the sensation ‘profound’ conveys nothing at all.
Susan felt rather faint. Her fellow-guests, standing like drugged sheep, seemed to be bent upon at once avoiding one another’s gaze and ascertaining one another’s demeanour. Only their eyes shifted, their heads and bodies remaining perfectly still. As for Labotte, the consciousness that he had publicly insulted a Duke, harrassed a future Duchess, and for the last seven days conspicuously licked a rank impostor all over seemed to have affected his reason. He staggered to a doorway, collided with and ricochetted from the jamb, kicked the latter savagely, screamed and disappeared. . . .
Major Pleydell was speaking.
“But didn’t you know?” he said.
Susan could only shake her head.
“Bless my soul,” said Berry. “Never mind. Let’s drown it in drink. Besides, it’s not his fault. Only . . .”
“What?” said Susan.