“Then, sir——” I began, amazement and indignation struggling together within me.
“I tell you, Baron,” he interrupted, “we are very sorry things have turned out like this. My wife is most genuinely distressed. But she too sees the impossibility—unforeseen complications demand we should go home.”
“My dear Baron,” he again interrupted, “it needn’t in the least interfere with you. Old James will stay with you if you and the Baroness would like to go on.”
“Sir, I have paid for a month, and have only had a week.”
“Well, go on and finish your month. Nobody is preventing you.”
“But I was persuaded to join the tour on the understanding that it was a party—that we were all to be together—four weeks together——”
“My dear fellow,” said he (never had I been addressed as that before), “you talk as if it were a business arrangement, a buying and selling, as if we were bound by a contract, under agreement——”
“Your sister-in-law inveigled me into it,” I exclaimed, emphasizing what I said by regular beats on the table with my forefinger, “on the definite understanding that it was to be a party and she—was—to be—a—member of it.”
“Pooh, my dear Baron—Betti’s definite understandings. She’s in love, and when a woman’s that it’s no earthly use——”