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The Tirol did not tolerate anything that savoured of the scandalous; the Tirol was a respectable house; the Tirol was ever careful, always rigid in the protection of its good name; and so on and so forth at great length and with great precision. But Mr. Githens had two officers with him, and he demanded the person of the man calling himself Roxbury Medcroft.
"There is no telegram down there, madam." At this juncture Mr. Odell-Carney appeared on the scene, uninvited but welcome. "Wot's all this?" he demanded sternly. Everybody proceeded at once to tell him. Somehow he got the drift of the story. "Get out all of you!" he said. "I stand sponsor for Mrs. Medcroft. She is Mrs. Medcroft, hang you, sir.
Brock was icy-cold with apprehension as they walked down the line of wagon-lits in the wake of the bag-bearers. Mrs. Medcroft was as self-possessed and as dégagé as he was ill at ease and awkward. As they ascended the steps of the carriage, she turned back to him and said, with the most malicious twinkle in her eyes, "I'm not a bit nervous."
"Not I, Freddie." She considered for a second and then went on: "She's not in love with you. You must be blind. She's crazy about Mr. Medcroft." "By Jove," exclaimed Freddie, stopping short, his eyes bulging. He looked at her for a minute in silence, realisation sifting into his face. "You're right! She is in love with him. I see it now. Well, what do you think of that! Her brother-in-law!"
He glared hard at Brock; the Rodneys saw signs of disaster. "Oh, by Jove, are you the fellow who put those new windows in the Chaucer Memorial Hall? 'Pon me soul! Are you the man who did that?" There was no mistaking his manner; he was distinctly annoyed. Brock faced the storm coolly, for his friend Medcroft's sake. "I am Roxbury Medcroft, if that's what you mean, Mr. Odell-Carney."
Fond mothers in the crowd of hurrying travellers found time to look upon him and smile as if to say, "What a nice man!" He could almost hear them saying it. Which, no doubt, accounted for the intense ruddiness of his cheeks. "Do you ever spank her?" he demanded once of Mrs. Medcroft, after Tootles had brought tears to his eyes with a potent attack upon his nose.
I had Mademoiselle Le Brun over to hear the band concert she is related to that painter woman, by the way; I told Katherine she was. Say, gentlemen, we'll stand by Mrs. Medcroft, won't we? Count me in. If it's anything that money can square, I'm here with a letter of credit six figures long." "Join us," said Odell-Carney warmly. "You're a good sort, after all." They sat down at a table.
He blandly ignored telegrams and letters addressed to Roxbury Medcroft, and once he sat like a lump, with everyone staring at him, when the chairman of the architects' convention asked if Mr. Medcroft had anything to say on the subject under discussion. He was forced, in some confusion, to attribute his heedlessness to a life-long defect in hearing.
"You know, of course, that I lived in your aw delightful city for some years. Strange we never met, 'pon my soul." "Oh, New York's a pretty big place, Mr. Medcroft," said Freddie good-naturedly. He was a slight young fellow with a fresh, inquisitive face. "It's bigger than London in some ways. It's bigger upwards. Say, do you know, you remind me of a fellow I knew in New York!"
What transpired in those rooms during the next fifteen minutes would be quite impossible to narrate short of an entire volume. Edith promptly collapsed. Subsequently she became hysterical. She begged for time, and, getting it, proceeded to threaten every one with prosecution. "I am Mrs. Medcroft!" she declared piteously. "Where is the American consul? I demand the American consul!"
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