Sudden silence had fallen on the room, to be followed by indiscriminate and half-smothered giggling. My Lady Dacre’s face betrayed blank consternation.
“Let me go—”
“Not for—”
“Let me go, fool.”
He of the thin shanks imagined that he was amusing the salon with his waggery till a hand fastened upon his collar. Tom Temple, still blissfully blind, came careering along one wall, and added emphasis to the climax by coming down with a crash over a three-legged stool.
“I shall deem it a curtesy, sir, if you will release Lady Dacre’s wrists.”
Thomas Lennard’s face had the cold fury of a blizzard. Yet he was utterly polite. The gallant whom he had taken by the collar had twisted round, and was staring with ludicrous vacuity into my lord’s eyes.
Stephen Gore watched the drama with an expression of angelic satisfaction.
“Hortense, my friend, let me see you stop a quarrel.”
She had moved forward from the window with all the atmosphere of the Sun King’s court.