“Yes, from an excellent lady, who addresses me as her cousin, and signs herself Martha Mary Grace Devereux, and who informed me that her son and daughter were coming to town, and begged of me to take care of them.”
Miss Devereux, dropping her knife and fork, gazed steadily at Percival. She became very white, while a sudden anger flamed in her expressive eyes.
“You, then, are Mr. Eugene Percival?” she said, a harshness in her voice.
“Yaas.”
“Of the Foreign Office?”
“I have the honor to be attached to that blundering institution.”
“If I do not mistake, Mr. Percival, you received more than one letter from Ballybo.”
“Yaas, I got one from a sulky young Irishman who—”
“Have you met him?” she interrupted.
“No, thank Heaven! and I hope I never shall.”