"Did you. I understand you to say that Molly was engaged to be married to that Finch?"
"Yes, I did. And," added Sigsbee H., giving battle in the first line of trenches, "it's no good saying it was all my fault, because I had nothing to do with it."
"It was you who brought this man into the house."
"Well, yes." Sigsbee had overlooked that weak spot in his defences. "Well, yes."
There came upon Mrs. Waddington a ghastly calm like that which comes upon the surface of molten lava in the crater of a volcano just before the stuff shoots out and starts doing the local villagers a bit of no good.
"Ring the bell," she said.
Sigsbee H. rang the bell.
"Ferris," said Mrs. Waddington, "ask Miss Molly to come here."
"Very good, madam."
In the interval which elapsed between the departure of the butler and the arrival of the erring daughter, no conversation brilliant enough to be worth reporting took place in the room. Once Sigsbee said "Er——" and in reply Mrs. Waddington said "Be quiet!" but that completed the dialogue. When Molly entered, Mrs. Waddington was looking straight in front of her and heaving gently, and Sigsbee H. had just succeeded in breaking a valuable china figure which he had taken from an occasional table and was trying in a preoccupied manner to balance on the end of a paper-knife.