"You have been done!" proclaimed Tilly defiantly. She was fast losing control of herself. She felt dimly that she was behaving in an hysterical and theatrical manner; but when one's world is tumbling about one's ears, one may be excused for stating the truth rather more explicitly than is usual. "Yes--done!" she repeated. "I will tell you just exactly who we are and what we are. Father is a gentleman, right enough"--her voice rang out proudly--"as well-born a gentleman as any of the land; but he has followed no regular profession for twenty years, and he lives on Mother. Mother keeps lodgings. This house is a lodging-house, and those two men you saw were lodgers. Percy works in a wholesale haberdasher's in Holborn. I do a little dress-designing. 'Melia helps Mother with the lodgers. So you see you have been imposed on: we work for a living! But you must n't blame the Family for what has happened. It was my idea from start to finish: the Family only backed me up. And they did back me up! No girl ever had such a splendid father or mother, or brother or sister." Tilly stepped back into the heart of her bodyguard, feeling for friendly hands. "I 'm proud of them," she cried passionately, "proud to belong to them! I'm proud that my name is Tilly Welwyn, and I never wish to change it for any other. We Welwyns may be nobodies but we stick together. There! You may go now."
The drawing-room door creaked and opened, but no one noticed.
"I have told you everything, I think," said Tilly, more calmly. "I know now that I should have told you in any case. That's all.... No, it's not."
She swung round towards the doorway, and pointed to the grotesque figure of that earnest student of the drama, Samuel Stillbottle, who was myopically deciphering a small but tattered document, all but concealed in the palm of his hand.
"We're paupers!" she cried. "We're in debt! We're broke! There's a distraint on the furniture; and that creature"--Mr. Stillbottle, hazily conscious that a cue was coming, furtively thrust his manuscript into his waistcoat pocket--"that creature is a broker's man! Oh, Mother, Mother, Mother!"
In an instant Martha Welwyn's arms closed round her daughter.
"There, there!" she crooned. "My lamb, my pretty, my precious, my dearie--don't you cry!"
There was a deathlike stillness, broken only by Tilly's sobs. The Mainwarings stood like statues. Mr. Welwyn sat on the sofa, his head bowed between his hands. Grandma Banks slumbered peacefully. The bewildered but conscientious Stillbottle seized his opportunity, and cleared his throat.
"The shover, sir," he announced huskily, "is below, a-waitin' for--"
Next moment a hand like a vice closed upon the herald's collar, and Dicky Mainwaring's voice remarked concisely into his ear:--