“And Miss Waters went?”
“In a first-class cab, maid and boxes in another, all complete. Perfect lady.… Couldn’t have believed if I hadn’t seen it—the tail, I mean.”
“And Miss Glendower?”
“Addy? Oh, she’s been going it. Comes downstairs and does the pale-faced heroine and goes upstairs and does the broken-hearted part. I know. It’s all very well. You never had sisters. You know——”
Fred held his pipe elaborately out of the way and protruded his face to a confidential nearness.
“I believe they half like it,” said Fred, in a confidential half whisper. “Such a go, you know. Mabel pretty near as bad. And the girls. All making the very most they can of it. Me! I think Chatteris was the only man alive to hear ’em. I couldn’t get up emotion as they do, if my feet were being flayed. Cheerful home, eh? For holidays.”
“Where’s—the principal gentleman?” asked Melville a little grimly. “In London?”
“Unprincipled gentleman, I call him,” said Fred. “He’s stopping down here at the Métropole. Stuck.”
“Down here? Stuck?”
“Rather. Stuck and set about.”