"No, you don't!" Mrs. Bundercombe prohibited. "I've a good deal more to
say yet. I haven't been dragged over the ocean three thousand miles to
have you all slip away directly I arrive. A nice state of things indeed!
My husband, Joseph H. Bundercombe, a suspect at Scotland Yard, followed
everywhere by detectives; and my daughter----"
"Stepdaughter, please," Eve interrupted.
"Stepdaughter then!--talking about marrying a man she's probably known
about twenty-four hours and met at a bar or in a thieves' kitchen, or
something of the sort! If you must marry an Englishman," she continued
with rising voice, "why don't you marry Lord Reginald Sidley there? His
father is an earl, anyway."
"His uncle's one," Reggie put in gloomily, jerking his head toward me.
"Old Walmsley's all right."
Eve patted his hand.
"Good boy!" she said. "You know I never encouraged you--did I, Reggie?'"
"Encouraged me!" he protested. "I think, on the whole, you said the rudest
things to me I ever heard in my life--from a girl, anyway. I imagine," he
added, taking up his hat, "that it's up to me to leave this little
domestic gathering."
"I'll see you out," Mr. Bundercombe declared with alacrity.
Mrs. Bundercombe, with her eyes steadily fixed upon her husband, stepped
back until she blocked the doorway.
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