“I am serious, Arthur. Lord D’Arcy was a moral idiot, first and last a crutch man, leaning on others. No sense of responsibility whatever. I could tell you stories . . .!”
“But you won’t, Mary. That is so exasperating. However, let him rest in peace!”
“In peace——? I should be false to my faith in the here and the hereafter, if I let pass such a remark. Lord D’Arcy, wherever he may be, is not in peace. But I thought—possibly I am mistaken—that the duchess was in France.”
Tiddy answered promptly:
“She is. She ought to be at home. What has happened? The patients and the servants—oh, those servants!!—get top-hole rations. The nursing-staff were half-starved.”
“Dear, dear!” ejaculated Mrs. Roden. She looked shocked, but she felt somehow rather pleased. The Duchess of Mowbray, before the war, had overlooked Mrs. Roden’s claims to consideration upon more than one occasion. Cicely, not too sharp in such matters, guessed that Tiddy was “making good.”
“Yes,” continued Tiddy cheerfully; “the duchess, you see, arranged with some contractor to feed us, and of course he didn’t.”
“I give undivided attention to these important matters,” said Mrs. Roden.
“I know you do,” said Tiddy.
Presently, the talk drifted into Wilverley’s particular channel. Tiddy listened to him attentively, chipping in, now and again, with apposite remarks that astonished Cicely. Altogether, this first meeting was a small triumph for Miss Tiddle.