Lord Otford started at the word. "The Gazebo?—Ha! Very appropriate!"
"Eh? Why?" asked Sir Peter, sitting on the seat in the summer-house and making room for his friend beside him. Lord Otford produced a crumpled letter from his pocket. "Here! Read this!" said he, thrusting it under Sir Peter's nose.
"Can't," said the latter, curtly, "haven't my spy-glass on me!"
"Well, listen." Lord Otford read the letter aloud, with ill-suppressed fury.—"'My lord—It is my painful duty to inform your Lordship that your Lordship's son, the Hon. John Sayle, is carrying on a clandestine love-affair with Mademoiselle Marjolaine Lachesnais, of Pomander Walk—'"
The Admiral had grown purple in the face. "Belay, there!" he roared.
Lord Otford took no notice, but went on reading: "'Yesterday they were together for an hour in the Gazebo—'"
The Admiral would have no more of it. "When did you get that, and who sent it?" he roared. The fact that the information was true was quite outweighed by the implication that an inhabitant of the Walk could have been guilty of the lowest form of treachery.
"It's signed, 'Your true Friend and Well-wisher,'" said Lord Otford, "and I had it on Sunday."
The Admiral could hardly speak. "Do you mean to say that damned, anonymous, Sabbath-breaking rag came from Pomander Walk?"
"I presume so."