"I declare you're right, madam," said he gallantly. "You've quite convinced me. Of course, some of 'em must go: I say, Let the sickly ones go."
"I never heard such brutal, such murderous sentiments expressed in my life before," said a solemn voice; and every one became aware that at last Lady Weekes had spoken. Her speech was the signal for universal silence, in the midst of which the ladies got up and left the room.
Trelyon took his mother's place and sent round the wine. He was particularly attentive to Mr. Roscorla, who was surprised. Perhaps, thought the latter, he is anxious to atone for all this bother that is now happily over.
If the younger man was silent and preoccupied, that was not the case with Mr. Roscorla, who was already assuming the airs of a rich person, and speaking of his being unable to live in this district or that district of London, just as if he expected to purchase a lease of Buckingham Palace on his return from Jamaica.
"And how are all my old friends in Hans Place, Sir Percy?" he cried.
"You've been a deserter, sir—you've been a deserter for many a year now," the general said gayly, "but we're all willing to have you back again to a quiet rubber after dinner, you know. Do you remember old John Thwaites? Ah, he's gone now—left one hundred and fifty thousand pounds to build a hospital, and only five thousand pounds to his sister. The poor old woman believed some one would marry her when she got the whole of her brother's money—so I'm told—and when the truth became known, what did she do? Gad, sir! she wrote a novel abusing her own brother. By the way, that reminds me of a devilish good thing I heard when I was here last—down at the inn, you know. What's the name of the girls I was talking about? Well, her ladyship caught one of them reading a novel, and not very well pleased with it, and says she to the young lady, 'Don't you like that book?' Then says the girl—let me see what was it? Gad! I must go and ask her ladyship."
And off he trotted to the drawing-room. He came back in a couple of minutes. "Of course," said he. "Devilish stupid of me to forget it. 'Why,' said the young lady, 'I think the author has been trying to keep the fourth commandment, for there's nothing in the book that has any likeness to anything in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or the heavens under the earth.'"
"The waters under the earth."
"I mean the waters, of course. Gad! her ladyship was immensely tickled."
"Which of the two young ladies was it, Sir Percy? The younger, I suppose?" said Mr. Roscorla.