“Did you receive the message I left at your house?” he asked abruptly as the door closed behind his cousin.
“No; I haven’t been home. But your servant told me you had asked me to come in,” said I.
“Yes, I did. You have done just what I wanted. In my note I asked you to come in and observe my cousin, and tell me your impression. I saw you couldn’t help observing him, so now let us have the impression.”
“Quite frankly? All?” I said.
“Of course.”
“I never saw anyone so utterly terrible,” I said.
“Terrible? Exactly how?” he asked.
The very intensity of my feeling about Hampden blurred the outline of it, and I paused trying to put a definite shape to it.
“Incomparably terrible,” I said. “Murderous, I think: murderous for the fun of it. I felt like Fifi.”
“I saw you did,” he said; “and I suspect you are right, you and Fifi....”