Rather plain and direct, that, don't you think? Sort of heavy broadsword stroke, you know. But she took it full and clean—never winced or turned a hair. Just looked thoughtful.
"Yes," she said slowly. "Jacky says it'll have to come to that some day—some arrangement. Neither of us ever want to marry."
"Oh!"
And my monocle dropped!
Couldn't chirp another word, you know! Just stood there, round-mouthed and staring blankly—kind of fascinated, too, dash it—and wondering what particular freak cult hers was. And I felt myself getting redder and redder every second! Then the awful thought came to me that this advanced and emancipated dowd had been the friend and companion of my darling—that her poisonous influence had been felt for months; was being exerted still. I wondered how she could look me in the face, but she wasn't. No, she had switched her head around and was glaring at the servants down the hall. So I just swayed there, trying to think, and boring at the back of her head, till it came to me dully that her hair didn't match her what-you-call-'ems, and my dashed brain just seized on and clung to this like a drowning man does to a what-you-may-call-it.
"Thom-as!" the frump exploded.
One of the footmen who was doubled over, red-faced and writhing, in the exercise of some pleasantry with his companion, straightened with an aggrieved air. He ambled toward us.
"Some specimens that Mr. Billings gathered—plants and foliage; he left them in the car," jerked the frump. "See they are cared for."
The man nodded indifferently and slouched away.
Her frown gloomed after him and her voice snapped at his laggard heels: