"Oh, really, Lady McIntyre,"—he tried to enfold the poor little lady in his own reassurance. "I haven't heard anything to suggest—"
"Then you've forgotten how we lost our dear good Bloom. That was bad enough. But what has worried William a great deal more are the questions, though they are asked only in private—'as yet only in private,' William says,"—Lady McIntyre clasped her thin hands—"questions about Greta. William has been splendid, so has Julian. We have all tried to make it—" The delicate face crumpled suddenly. It seemed to shrivel as the picture of a face might at the touch of fire. The touch of trouble—consolidator of the strong, disintegrator of the weak—had found out Lady McIntyre in her safe and sheltered place in the world. She turned away the quivering little visage and went on: "There have been letters. Odious anonymous letters,"—she brought her eyes back to Napier again, the eyes of a hurt child—"about Greta! Poor William had been getting horrid letters for a fortnight. He never said a word about them till the wretches began to write to me. And the neighbors—no, you can't think what we've been through!" The relief of tears eased the strain.
"The Scotland Yard people—I've only known that since Sunday week—they'd already been to William. With absolutely nothing that could be called proof. 'Suspicious circumstances'—'a girl going out to meet her lover under the rose.' She told William she was going to marry him—Ernst; yes. I liked Carl best—such nice teeth. But anyway—William—they little knew, those Scotland Yard people."
From confused fragments of overcolored speech, Napier gathered that the growing epidemic of fear and detestation had only stiffened his chief's determination to protect the stranger within his gate.
"You wouldn't have called William a patient man, now, would you? Well, you ought to have heard how he explained, argued, said all the right things. You might as well suspect my daughter of being the wrong sort of person to live under my roof. The lady in question is one of us. I vouch for Miss von Schwarzenberg."
Even the child—even Meggy—came to know that people looked askance at her for having Greta at her side!
Even Meggy! Napier was ready to swear that "the child" was, after Miss Greta herself, by far the best-informed person in the house. She was, anyway, according to her mother, the most indignant. Meggy had made common cause with Nan Ellis and Mr. Grant in ridiculing and condemning the popular superstition that every German must needs be an enemy of England. Napier heard how those three had redoubled their watchful friendship, a self-constituted bodyguard to keep Miss Greta safe from any breath of discourtesy, from so much as a glance of unworthy suspicion.
A momentary comfort derived from the thought of these champions suddenly failed Lady McIntyre. The smoothness of her face was broken again, as, again on the brink of tears, she remembered the villain of the piece. "The local inspector—that creature who made Greta go to Newton Hackett without any tea—he came again. Simply wouldn't go till William had seen him. I haven't often known William so angry. I am afraid he was rude to the man. It never does to be rude to these people. I've tried being kind to him. I,"—the tear-faded eyes lifted with a look of conscious virtue—"I gave him all William's best cigars. And still he hasn't given us a moment's peace. Of course William flatly refused to send Greta away. 'Not all the inspectors in England—'" \lady McIntyre stiffened her slight back a moment with borrowed resolution. Only for a moment. The next saw her wavering forward with: "Then two men came down from London to see me! Oh, Mr. Gavan,"—she writhed her locked fingers—"they won't go!"
"Won't go?"
She shook her ear-rings, speechless a moment. Then in a whisper: "At the inn, since yesterday. What do you think of that?"