"I will tell you the whole story if you like, Aunt Fanny. There is just time before lunch, and it always gives me an appetite to talk about myself." Lady Jocelyn nodded. "Go on, Tony," she said encouragingly. "We have plenty of food in the house."
Lady Jocelyn nodded. "Go on, Tony," she said, encouragingly. "We have plenty of food in the house."
There is something rather effective about a really incongruous atmosphere, and described the next morning, with the solid respectability of Chester Square as a background, the midnight battle of Latimer Lane seemed to gain rather than lose in vividness. Tony told it with what for him was a really praiseworthy restraint and directness, and he had just got to the end when the door opened and the parlour-maid announced that lunch was ready.
Lady Jocelyn rose from the sofa. "Let us go and have something to eat," she said. "I feel absolutely in need of support. Your society has always been stimulating, Tony; but since you have adopted a profession I find it almost overwhelming."
She put her arm through Isabel's, and they made their way down to the dining-room where a dainty little lunch was waiting their attention. For a few minutes the conversation took a briskly gastronomic trend, and then, having dismissed the parlour-maid Lady Jocelyn turned to Tony.
"You can go on," she said. "I feel stronger now."
"I don't know that there's very much more to tell," said Tony. "I had to explain it all to Guy who was very hard and unsympathetic. He said it served me right for taking Isabel to the Empire, and that it was only through the mercy of Heaven we were both not wanted for murder. I think he must have meant Harrod, but he said Heaven."
"They are not at all alive," replied Lady Jocelyn, "at least I hope not. I should hate to spend eternity in Harrod's." She paused. "I wonder if there is any chance of your having been followed this morning?"