He picked up his slouch hat and donned his disreputable old cape,
"Vain is his hope whose stay and trust is
In moral mercy, truth and justice!"
Having rooted out his umbrella and tucked Amanthus, pretty thing, onto his arm, Marcus here paused within the doorway and said backward over his shoulder mellowly to Selina and Juliette.
"Kindly explain for me to Miss Boswell that it will take me just three minutes to go and return. She's talking in the parlor with your mother and your aunt, Selina. Amanthus," still more mellowly, "shall I make an utterance for you as you are leaving? Your single contribution to the evening's parley? That, so far as I have been present to observe, you have been a silently eloquent and irrefutable argument for the affirmative? Don't ask Amanthus what irrefutable means, my cousin Selina, nor brisk Juliette? That were unworthy of you, and unkind!"
"Rooted out his umbrella and tucked Amanthus, pretty thing, onto his arm."
Juliette turned indignantly upon Selina as Marcus and Amanthus left. "It's we who're left in the ungenerous attitudes!" hotly. "How did we get there?"
Later, after Marcus in his old hat and shabby cape had returned, and again had departed, with Miss Boswell in his keeping, Selina cast herself upon her mother and burst into tears.