This was very satisfactory. Penelope saw she was doing good. In the middle of her joy, she received a wire from Goby.
"May I stop poetry with De Vere? Doctor says I am overdoing it. GOBY."
She also received one at the same time from De Vere:
"If I could have a week to myself to write satire, should be eternally grateful. Doctor says rowing may be carried to excess. The bulldog is well.
"DE VERE."
The Marquis de Rivaulx, after a fortnight with Gordon, asked to be allowed to go over to Paris to see his mother. But he acknowledged that Gordon was not a bad chap, though he was as white as a sheet in the balloon.
"And he told me, my dear lady, what to buy. He knows very well what to buy and what to sell. He is immensely clevair, oh, yes. And may I go and see maman?"
She let him go, but not before he promised to take no part in any further anti-Semitic proceedings. She told Gordon not to brag so much of having been in a balloon.
"You know you were afraid," she said. "The marquis said you were."
"Of course I was," said Gordon, "but I went, didn't I?"