“I’m sure it was very kind of you,” said the Duchess. “You are coming to the Bazaar, then?” she continued, gazing into his face appealingly.
“Sure thing,” said Mr. Milligan, with great promptness. “Lord Peter said you’d let me know for sure about the date, but we can always make time for a little bit of good work anyway. Of course I’m hoping to be able to avail myself of your kind invitation to stop, but if I’m rushed, I’ll manage anyhow to pop over and speak my piece and pop back again.”
“I hope so very much,” said the Duchess. “I must see what can be done about the date—of course, I can’t promise—”
“No, no,” said Mr. Milligan heartily. “I know what these things are to fix up. And then there’s not only me—there’s all the real big men of European eminence your son mentioned, to be consulted.”
The Duchess turned pale at the thought that any one of these illustrious persons might some time turn up in somebody’s drawing-room, but by this time she had dug herself in comfortably, and was even beginning to find her range.
“I can’t say how grateful we are to you,” she said; “it will be such a treat. Do tell me what you think of saying.”
Suddenly everybody was standing up and a penitent voice was heard to say:
“Really, most awfully sorry, y’know—hope you’ll forgive me, Lady Swaffham, what? Dear lady, could I possibly forget an invitation from you? Fact is, I had to go an’ see a man down in Salisbury—absolutely true, ’pon my word, and the fellow wouldn’t let me get away. I’m simply grovellin’ before you, Lady Swaffham. Shall I go an’ eat my lunch in the corner?”
Lady Swaffham gracefully forgave the culprit.
“How do, Mother?” said Lord Peter, uneasily.
“How are you, dear?” replied the Duchess. “You really oughtn’t to have turned up just yet. Mr. Milligan was just going to tell me what a thrilling speech he’s preparing for the Bazaar, when you came and interrupted us.”
Conversation at lunch turned, not unnaturally, on the Battersea inquest, the Duchess giving a vivid impersonation of Mrs. Thipps being interrogated by the Coroner.
“‘Did you hear anything unusual in the night?’ says the little man, leaning forward and screaming at her, and so crimson in the face and his ears sticking out so—just like a cherubim in that poem of Tennyson’s—or is a cherub blue?—perhaps it’s a seraphim I mean—anyway, you know what I mean, all eyes, with little wings on its head. And dear old Mrs. Thipps saying, ‘Of course I have, any time these eighty years,’ and _such_ a sensation in court till they found out she thought he’d said, ‘Do you sleep without a light?’ and everybody laughing, and then the Coroner said quite loudly, ‘Damn the woman,’ and she heard that, I can’t think why, and said: ‘Don’t you get swearing, young man, sitting there in the presence of Providence, as you may say. I don’t know what young people are coming to nowadays’—and he’s sixty if he’s a day, you know,” said the Duchess.