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Updated: June 24, 2025
Finally I sat down to a pipe and thought the matter over, until I decided on a definite line of action. The upshot of it all was that I wrote this note, and with my own hands bore it to her ladyship's house: "Dear Lady Rollinson, I am utterly at a loss to understand the occurrences of yesterday and to-day. A moment's reflection will show you that an explanation is absolutely due to me.
If Lady Rollinson, Violet, the count, and myself had been dining alone that evening, I should probably have been allowed, under the circumstances, to dispense with evening-dress, and so there would have been no necessity for my going home again before dinner.
But the fact was, the Honorable Richard Pennroyal had never been an especial favorite with Dr. Rollinson. The next day was a new excitement. Archibald had walked, and that, too, as well as the best-grown boy of seven that you would want to see. "Ay, and where did he walk to?" demanded the Doctor.
Anger was taking the place of bewilderment, and I was striding rapidly up and down the room when Lady Rollinson entered. The weather was still cold, but she carried a fan in her hand, and moved it rapidly as she walked into the room and sank into a chair. I bowed with a stiff inclination of the head, but she made no return to my salute.
When the ladies had retired we smoked a cigarette, drank a cup of black coffee, and made our way to the drawing-room, where Lady Rollinson had promised us something unusual in the way of music. It was my right to have monopolized Violet's society, or if not actually to have monopolized it, to have taken a full share of it.
But four whole weeks went by before I ventured to obey her invitation to call, and by that time I was sore afraid that she had forgotten all about me. It was Lady Rollinson herself who received me; a fat and comfortable lady of something more than fifty, as I should judge, though it is a perilous thing for a man to be meddling with guesses at a lady's age.
In a letter written by Sir Clarence to Dr. Rollinson, under date December 27th, 1811, the jolly Baronet says: "Our Xmas festivities were for a time interupted by another Romantic Event. Catherine, onely daughter of Colonel Battledown eloped with Mr. Archibald Malmaison of Malmaison.
Lady Rollinson rambled in this wise, and if I had had nothing to go on beforehand I should not have been able to make head or tail of her discourse; but Brunow's story flashed into my mind in a second, and I was sure that in some fashion it had reached Miss Rossano's ears.
Then I ventured after them in a fly, and having seen them all enter a hotel together, I made a note of its name and position in my mind, and took a little drive into the country before returning. When I got back and procured rooms, my heart leaped as I signed the visitors' book, for at the top of the page on which I wrote I saw the names of Lady Rollinson, Miss Rossano and maid.
Doctor Rollinson, she wrote, had seen dear Archie, and had said that what had happened was only what might have been expected; and that the dear child's health would certainly not suffer, but, on the contrary, be strengthened, and his life prolonged.
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