“Confound the London newspapers! As for the men who came out here to cater for news—paid Paul Prys and chiels in butcher-boots and traveling-caps, taking notes—they go too far. It is unbearable espionage—presumption!—insolence! I’d hang up every one of them, if I had the authority and the privileges the Provost-Marshal enjoys! Why, one of those rags of papers actually published information as to where we’d stored our powder! What business have Fleet Street journalists nosing about at the Seat of War?”
She said with spirit:
“They make mistakes occasionally, like the rest of us. But nearly all of them are gentlemen of education, good sense, and good feeling. Could anything but honest, fearless indignation have penned those articles in the Times? And—if there is maladministration—lack of organization—are they not right in pointing where the fault lies? The British Public, who give their fathers, husbands, sons and brothers to the service of the country—surely have a right to know how they fare!... Lord Cardillon!—could not much of this horrible suffering and waste of life have been prevented by a little forethought?”
He frowned, but answered:
“Since you will have it—yes!” He added, as she thanked him with a look for the truth, seeing that it had galled in the utterance:
“Please, no more now on that subject. Here’s Miss Delavayle!” And their conversation ended with the rustling arrival of a tall, elegant woman, who hurried up and sank down into a chair between them, saying with an affectation of breathlessness:
“I’m dead, hearing people sing your praises, and telling them that you don’t deserve any!”
She was a blonde of rather hard and brilliant coloring, dressed as brilliantly as a tropical bird. Her cheeks and eyes were burning with suppressed, none the less evident, excitement; her nerves seemed tense and strung. As she looked at the man, her glance was feverishly bright and hungrily possessive. He moved uneasily as though he felt it so.
“Rest; why don’t you rest?” he said to her. “But you never rest. I wonder when you will?”
Lady Stratclyffe had risen and joined the Ambassador’s circle. The answer was given: