“A Billingsgate fishwoman, I should imagine, from your language! Certainly not a gentlewoman!” said Captain Hill, his eyes blazing with his wrath.
“’Ang you! I’ll soon teach you ’ow to insult a lady that’s connected with Royalty!”
At that, the stranger burst into a derisive laugh.
“Down the back stairs!” he muttered to himself, but Madame Gobelli caught the words.
“Get out of my ’ouse,” she cried. “’Ere, Miss Wynward, see this fellow out at the front door, and never you let ’im in again, or I’ll give you a month’s warning! Down the back stairs indeed! Confound you! If you don’t clear out this very minute, I’ll lay my stick across your back! You’ll make me destroy my dog, will you, and just because your trumpery mother don’t like ’is barking! Go ’ome and tell ’er to ’old ’er own row! And you accuse my servants of not giving ’im enough to eat. You’d be glad enough to see ’is dinner on your own table once or twice a week. Out with you, I say—out with you at once, and don’t let me see your ugly mug and your carroty ’ead in ’ere again, or I’ll set the dog you don’t like upon you.”
Captain Hill had turned white as a sheet with anger.
“You’ll hear more of this, Madam, and from my solicitor next time,” he said. “Heartless, unfeeling woman! How can you call yourself a mother, when you have no pity for a son’s grief at his mother’s illness? Pray God you may not have occasion to remember this morning, when you have to part from your own son!”
He rushed from the room as he spoke, and they heard the hall door slam after him. For a minute after he left, there was a dead pause between the three women. His last words seemed to have struck the Baroness as with a two-edged sword. She stood silent, staring into vacancy, and breathing hard, whilst Harriet Brandt and Miss Wynward regarded each other with furtive dismay. The silence was broken by Madame Gobelli bursting into a harsh laugh.
“I don’t fancy ’e will show ’is face in my ’ouse again, in an ’urry,” she exclaimed. “It was as good as a play to watch ’im, trying to brave it out! Confound ’is old mother! Why don’t she die and ’ave done with it! I’ve no patience with old people ’anging on in that way, and worrying the ’ole world with their fads! Well! what is it?” she continued to a maid who brought her a letter.
“By the post, my lady!”