"Lord Erskine is, my dear—the most—notorious old man in England!" she pronounced—so terribly that "And may the Lord have mercy on his soul" naturally followed. Her verdict was final.
"But what has he done?" I started to inquire, the journalistic tendency for the moment uppermost, but her lips showed white lines of repression.
"He is never mentioned!" she warned briefly, and I felt constrained to wish that the same punishment could be applied to America's ancient sinners.
"Oh, so bad as that?"
She leaned closer.
"My dear Miss Christie, it would be impossible—quite impossible—to enumerate the peccadillos of that wretched old creature!"
"Yet you women are always ready to attempt the impossible!" her husband interposed, after his noisy attempt at lighting a cigarette had failed to drown out our voices.
She looked up at him.
"Herbert, I don't understand you, I'm sure."
He laughed.