“The French Revolution!” repeated the dowager.
“I’ll wager that’s why the duchess bolted,” said the captain, suddenly. “She’d seen through it.”
“Selbstverständlich,” said Lady Verita, pouring cold tea over the crumbs, to the end that the poodle might enjoy some truly kind attention.
“I’m going straight to her!” announced the marchioness, rising with dignity. “I wish to let her know that I know, too.”
In less than two minutes the lady and the captain were left alone together.
“I believe you wrote it for a sell,” the man said then. He did occasionally beam brightly through his own fog, and he was anxious now to be on good terms again; “you knew how it would be taken.”
“Perhaps,” said Lady Verita, calmly; “but do ring for them to take away the tea, and then run along yourself. I’m tired.”
“You treat me like a dog,” grumbled the captain, “and I never rebel. Do kiss me once before I go, anyhow, and say you love me just once. Do!”
She kissed him, and that so sweetly that she was barely through with it when the men came in for the tea-things. The men going out with the tea-things were barely on the other side of the door when she said “I love you,” and that sweetly, too. The captain went away in raptures. If only—if only—
It was this sort of happenings that kept so much gossip afloat about the young couple.