"Yes?"
"It's hateful of you, Fanny.... From the hunchback."
Her astonishment, surely, could not have been pretence. "And what the devil, you dear, stammering little midgelet, has your miserable little hunchback to do with me? Why send his scrawls to me—and in bits?"
"Because," said I, "I thought you had been making fun of him and me to—the others."
The light hands lifted themselves; the dark head tilted a little back and askew. "What a roundabout route," she sighed. But her face was false to the smooth, scornful accents. "So you suspected me of spying on you? I see. And gentle Susan Monnerie was kind enough to smear a little poison on the fangs. Well, Midgetina love, I tell you this. It's safer sometimes to lose your reputation than your temper. But there's a limit——"
"Hush," I whispered, for I had sharper ears than Fanny even when rage had not deafened her own. I pounced on the envelope—but only just in time.
"It's Mr Percy, miss," announced Fleming, "and may he come in?"
"Hallo!" said that young man, lounging greyly into view, "a bad penny, Miss M. I happened to be passing Buszard's just now, and there was the very thing! Miss Bowater says you have a sweet tooth, and they really are rather neat." He had brought me the daintiest little box of French doll bonbons. I glared at it; I glared at him—hardly in the mood for any more of his little jokes—not even one tied up with pale-blue ribbon.
"There's another thing," he went on. "Susan told us that your birthday was coming along—August 25th, isn't it? And I have proposed a Grand Birthday Party, sort of general rag. Miss M. in the Chair. Don't you think it's a ripping idea of mine, Miss Bowater?"