This exclamation not unnaturally shook her auditors. Miss Pickhill cast her a horrified glance, and then plucked at Mr.. Kane's sleeve, saying in an urgent whisper: "It's the shock! Perhaps a little drop of brandy - just to pull her together! I am an opponent of all forms of intoxicating liquor, but in a case like this - !"
"No, I don't think so," replied Jim.
"I don't believe you!" Cynthia said, pulling her hand out of Timothy's. "You're simply trying to have me on!" He said nothing. She caught her breath, and clutched the lapels of his coat, trying to shake him. "Say it isn't true! You don't understand! I shall have to go and live in Putney, or something ghastly, and I couldn't bear it! Is that why Aunt Violet's here? I won't go with her, I won't, I won't!"
"God, this is too awful!" muttered Beulah.
"Bit tight," Jim said, under his breath. "Good job. Better get her up to bed as soon as you can!"
There seemed, however, to be no immediate prospect of being able to follow out this advice. Cynthia, apparently convinced by now that her mother was indeed dead, was engaged in working herself into a state of alarming hysteria. A spate of words jostled one another on her lips and for a few moments stunned the assembled company into appalled silence. "It's all because I broke my mirror!" she said. "I knew something frightful would happen! Mummy said it was just a superstition, and now you see! Everything's gone wrong, every single thing! First I lost my powder-compact, and Dan said he'd give me another one, but he never did because he was murdered, and then everything was ghastly, and Mummy made me wear black, and was beastly about Lance, and now she's been murdered, and nobody cares about me, or what becomes of me! I wish I'd married that dreary Bill Uffington! I wish I'd married anybody! It's all Mummy's fault I'm not even engaged, because dozens of men have asked me, only she kept on saying I was too young, and could do better if I waited, and now look what's happened!"
"Cynthia!" uttered Miss Pickhill, finding her voice at last. "Be quiet, child! You don't know what you're saying!"
"Go away!" shrieked Cynthia, hurling her handbag at her aunt with more passion than accuracy. "I know what you mean to do! You mean to drag me off to that foul house of yours, and cover me up with antimacassars, and make me go to Church, and I'd rather die! And nothing will ever make me believe it wasn't you who stole my precious compact!" she added, rounding suddenly on Beulah. "It must have been either you or Mapperley, and it was you who said it was the prettiest one you'd ever seen! Mapperley said she didn't like it as well as my gold one, so that shows! Oh, what am I going to do, with only Aunt Violet left? Oh, Mummy! Oh, Dan!" She burst into a fit of wild sobbing, which turned into a succession of screams, when her aunt moved towards her. Neither her aunt's appeals, nor Timothy's stem command to her to Shut up! had the smallest effect; it was left to Mr.. Kane to put a summary end to a scene the echoes of which could probably be heard in Berkeley Square. This he did by limping to the sideboard, pouring out a tumbler of water, and casting it full in Cynthia's face. The shock startled her out of her hysteria; she gave a gasp, stood for a moment in complete silence, and then began to cry in good earnest.
"Take her up to bed!" Jim said imperatively.
Between them, Beulah and Miss Pickhill managed to get her out of the room, and up the stairs. Hemingway said: "Poor young lady! What you might call a highlystrung type. If you'll excuse me, there's a call I want to put through."