He shook hands with her, not very graciously. “I do not know what to say! I am utterly confounded! They have behaved very ill towards us, very ill indeed!”
“Oh yes!” she sighed. “But did we perhaps behave ill towards them?”
This was plainly going too far for the Major, whose eyes began to bulge again. Cedric intervened hastily: “Don’t set him off again, ma’am, for lord’s sake!”
“Hold your tongue, sir!” snapped the Major. “But you came here to see Sir Richard Wyndham, ma’am! How is this?”
“I came to see Sir Richard Wyndham upon quite another matter,” she replied. Her glance dwelled for an instant on Cedric, and travelled past him to Sir Richard. “And you, I think, must be Sir Richard Wyndham,” she said.
He bowed. “I am at your service, ma’am. Permit me to present Mr Brandon to you!”
She looked quickly towards Cedric. “Ah, I thought your face familiar! Sir, I hardly know what to say to you, except that I am more deeply distressed than I am well able to express to you.”
Cedric looked startled. “Nothing to be distressed about on my account, ma’am, nothing in the world! Must beg your ladyship to excuse my appearance! The fact is, these early hours, you know, put a man out!”
“Lady Luttrell refers, I apprehend, to Beverley’s death,” said Sir Richard dryly.
“Bev? Oh, of course, yes! Shocking affair! Never was more surprised in my life!”