“I thought you understood, uncle.”
“He doesn’t want to marry her! Tut! Never! Why, the man must be sixty if he’s a day....”
Captain Douglas regarded his distinguished uncle for a moment with distressed eyes. Then he came nearer, raised his voice and spoke more deliberately.
“I don’t know whether you quite understand, uncle. I am talking about this affair at Shonts last week-end.”
“My dear boy, there’s no need for you to shout. If only you don’t mumble and clip your words—and turn head over heels with your ideas. Just tell me about it plainly. Who is Shonts? One of those Liberal peers? I seem to have heard the name....”
“Shonts, uncle, is the house the Laxtons have; you know,—Lucy.”
“Little Lucy! I remember her. Curls all down her back. Married the milkman. But how does she come in, Alan? The story’s getting—complicated. But that’s the worst of these infernal affairs,—they always do get complicated. Tangled skeins—
“‘Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we venture to deceive.’
“And now, like a sensible man, you want to get out of it.”