‘Welcome, dear Amabel. We know you meant to please your aunt. It was very clever of you to think of putting the greenhouse flowers in the bare flower-bed. You couldn’t be expected to know that you ought to ask leave before you touch other people’s things.’
‘Oh, but,’ said Amabel quite confused. ‘I did….’
But the band struck up, and drowned her words. The instruments of the band were all of silver, and the bandsmen’s clothes of white leather. The tune they played was ‘Cheero!’
Then Amabel found that she was taking part in a procession, hand in hand with the Mayor, and the band playing like mad all the time. The Mayor was dressed entirely in cloth [p229 of silver, and as they went along he kept saying, close to her ear.
‘You have our sympathy, you have our sympathy,’ till she felt quite giddy.
There was a flower show—all the flowers were white. There was a concert—all the tunes were old ones. There was a play called Put yourself in her place. And there was a banquet, with Amabel in the place of honour.
They drank her health in white wine whey, and then through the Crystal Hall of a thousand gleaming pillars, where thousands of guests, all in white, were met to do honour to Amabel, the shout went up—‘Speech, speech!’
I cannot explain to you what had been going on in Amabel’s mind. Perhaps you know. Whatever it was it began like a very tiny butterfly in a box, that could not keep quiet, but fluttered, and fluttered, and fluttered. And when the Mayor rose and said:
‘Dear Amabel, you whom we all love and understand; dear Amabel, you who were so unjustly punished for trying to give pleasure to an unresponsive aunt; poor, ill-used, ill-treated, innocent Amabel; blameless, suffering Amabel, we await your words,’ that fluttering, tiresome butterfly-thing inside her seemed suddenly to swell to the size and strength of a fluttering albatross, and Amabel got up from her seat of [p230 honour on the throne of ivory and silver and pearl, and said, choking a little, and extremely red about the ears—
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t want to make a speech, I just want to say, “Thank you,” and to say—to say—to say….’