O! indeed! The old lady leitmotived once more, How interesting! How very interesting! Would you mind telling me the time?
It's a quarter of ten.
O! As late as that!—She had just arrived. Really, I had no idea it was so late. John—this to a decrepit old gentleman in shiny evening clothes—, John, it's a quarter to ten.
What of it? querulously demanded the old gentleman, with a curious upward turn to his ridiculous side-whiskers. What of it?
The old lady, forgetting her fifty years of training in the most exclusive drawing-rooms, turned and whispered something in his ear.
Now it was the turn of the old gentleman to feel a touch of apoplexy.
Berkman! he roared, Berkman! Where is the scoundrel? Where is the assassin?
The old lady looked almost shame-faced as she tried to pacify John: He's not here yet, but he may come.
We shall leave at once, announced the old gentleman decisively. Edith is trespassing on our good nature. She is going too far. We shall leave at once.
He offered the old lady his arm and they made their way rapidly out, rubbing against, in the passageway, a one-eyed man nearly seven feet tall. Now Edith had neither observed the coming or the going of this elderly couple but Bill Haywood had
