This command was modified to a slight extent later on. Brood felt sorry for the victims. He loved them, and he knew that their pride was injured a great deal more than their appetite. In its modified form the edict allowed them a small drink in the morning and another at bedtime, but the doses (as they sarcastically called them) were to be administered by Jones the butler, who held the key to the situation and—the sideboard.
“Is this a dispensary?” wailed Mr Dawes in weak horror. “Are we to stand in line and solicit the common necessities of life? Answer me, Riggs! Confound you, don't stand there like a wax figure! Say something!”
Mr Riggs shook his head bleakly.
“Poor Jim,” was all that he said, and rolled his eyes heavenward.
Mr Dawes reflected. After many minutes the tears started down his rubicund cheeks. “Poor old Jim,” he sighed. And after that they looked upon Mrs Brood as the common enemy of all three.
The case of Mrs John Desmond was disposed of in a summary but tactful manner.
“If Mrs Desmond is willing to remain, James, as housekeeper instead of friend, all well and good,” said Mrs Brood, discussing the matter in the seclusion of her boudoir. “I doubt, however, whether she can descend to that. You have spoiled her, my dear.”
Brood was manifestly pained and uncomfortable.
“She was the wife of my best friend, Yvonne. I have never permitted her to feel——”
“Ah,” she interrupted, “the wives of best friends! Nearly every man has the wife of a best friend somewhere in his life's history.” She shook her head at him with mock mournfulness.