Whether it was a fellow feeling for this private chronicle with the lock like hers, yet so ineffectual, certainly the sight of Greta's diary being passed from one strange hand to another made a sudden breach in Lady McIntyre's hard-won self-control.
"How you can!" She leaned forward to cast the three words into the dull face again over Greta's box. Grindley's hand was about to close upon a little gray silk bag which had fallen out of an envelope. Lady McIntyre was before him.
"I'll see what that is!" she said.
Napier winced in anticipation of the undignified struggle to which Lady McIntyre's action had laid her open.
But not at all. Grindley's good manners suffered him to make only the most civil protest.
"I wouldn't, really. Please, take care!"
Too late. Lady McIntyre had untied the drawstring and opened the innocent-looking, feminine thing, only to draw back, choking. Then she sneezed loudly. She sneezed without intermission, as she held the bag out at arm's length.
"Wha-atchew! What-atchew—is it? Chew!"
Grindley, handling the bag with caution, returned it to the thick waxed envelope and added that to his collection. Singleton had looked up an instant from his reading, sympathy in his attitude, a gleam of entertainment in his eye at recognition of this new object lesson in the unadvisability of a lady's poking her nose where a secret-service man warns her not to.
Napier stood anxiously over Lady McIntyre during the final paroxysm.