"If they would take five pounds and the ham to let me go," she pattered unevenly, searching in her purse. And she got half out of the car as Dearest George, his head muffled in an old net skirt of his wife's, came tearing blindly out of the laurels, flapping at a cloud of bees. They were in the net, entangled, these furious little beings of wrath tinged and buzzed in his ears. He struck the car, and with a sob clutched Smith the chauffeur, burrowing down under the wheel for covert.
"My God! they are after you!" said Mrs. Keane heavily. "They have hurt you! Oh, the horror--of reality!"
The amazing spectacle of George Freyne veiled in net thrilled her with horror.
"Half killed me, the devils! Start the car, Smith; back her! Get her away! Get us out of this! Half killed me! One eye gone, my nose ruined! Start her, will you?"
Smith jogged the self-starter, and put in the reverse with a yell. He had just been stung. Mrs. De Burgho Keane on the avenue leaped for safety as the maddened chauffeur passed her without heed.
"Put your long veil down," yelled George Freyne; "you'll be all right if you do."
A variety of muffled figures now issued from the bushes. Gheena entirely covered by art-muslin curtains, Stafford with a butterfly net over his head and the handle wagging behind, the rescuers insecurely draped, and the gardener in a correct bee dress and armed with a syringe and a bell.
Mrs. De Burgho Keane had sat down flat on the avenue, and she was quite close to a collapse. Stafford stopped to help her. She was clasping her floating lace veil across her face and she endeavoured to speak with a German accent. She leant back against nothing and nearly overbalanced.
Darby Dillon had driven his car over and had pulled up to watch in rare amazement the flight of Dearest George; the spinning away of the Limousine from its rightful owner, and her subsequent collapse.
Rocking helplessly at the wheel, he saw the Professor spin out Dervish-wise into the open, with a black ninon skirt roped round his neck and spreading out cape-wise over his shoulders.
"The party," said Stafford, from the butterfly net, "is now complete." He wagged the handle at Darby.
"You are not going to lift it!" muttered Mrs. Keane heavily. "Not going to look at me! I am really not so beautiful at all, Herr German. Mines! So quickly! They upset Smith--Schmidt, a name homelike to Boches. I--if five pounds, and a ham--it's all I've with me--to let me go."