“When I—Violet, dear—kissed you.”
Her face flushed scarlet.
“I was coming down the passage,” went on Mr Fanshawe, “going to my room, after leaving you, when some one grasped me by the arm. It was uncle. He had been standing in the dark at his door, and he saw everything, for, you remember, I had a lighted candle in my hand.”
“Go on,” said Violet.
“He drew me into his room——”
“Tell me exactly what he said.”
“I never swear before ladies,” said Mr Fanshawe, with a miserable attempt at jocularity, “but what he said, as far as I remember, was something like this: ‘Now, sir—now, sir—now, sir—now, sir—what the blank—what the blank—what the blank do you mean, sir? What the blank do you mean, you hound?’”
“He called you a hound?”
“He called me a hound.”
“But this is serious, Dicky.”