“Etta.”
“My poor child,” cried Clementina, as she entered the bower and beheld a very dim and watery fairy sobbing on a couch. “Who has been doing this to you?”
“It’s R-Raymond,” said Etta, chokingly.
To her astonishment Clementina found herself sitting on the couch with her arms round the girl. Now and then she did the most idiotic things without knowing in the least why she did them. In this position she listened to Etta’s heartrending story. It was much involved, here and there incoherent, told with singular disregard of chronological sequence. When properly pieced together and shorn of irrelevance, this is what it amounted to:
Certain doings of the bullet-headed young man, doings not at all creditable—mean and brutal doings indeed—had reached the ears of Etta’s father. Now Etta’s father was a retired admiral, and Etta the beloved child of his old age. The report of Captain Hilyard’s doings had wounded him in his weakest spot. In a fine fury he telephonically commanded the alleged wrongdoer to wait upon him without delay. Captain Hilyard obeyed. The scene of the interview was a private room in the service club to which Admiral Concannon belonged. Admiral Concannon went straight to the point—it is an uncomfortable characteristic of British admirals. The bullet-headed young man not being able to deny the charges brought against him, Admiral Concannon expressed himself in such terms as are only polished to their brightest perfection on the quarter-deck of a man-of-war. The young man showed resentment—amazing impudence, according to the Admiral—whereupon the Admiral consigned him to the devil and charged him never to let him (the Admiral) catch him (the bullet-headed young man) lifting his scoundrelly eyes again to an innocent young girl. Admiral Concannon came home and told his daughter as much of the tale of turpitude as was meet for her ears. Captain Hilyard repaired forthwith in unrighteous wrath to his quarters and packed off Etta’s letters, with a covering note in which he insinuated that he was not sorry to have seen the last of her amiable family. It had all happened that day.
Hence the tears.
“I thought you wrote me that the worst had happened,” said Clementina.
“Well, hasn’t it?”
“Good Lord!” cried Clementina. “It’s the very best thing that ever happened to you in all your born days.”
In the course of a week Clementina brought the sorrowing damsel round to her own way of thinking.