Squirming in misery, Mr. Chater remarked that he had his partners to consider. “I'm only too glad that Bob should enjoy himself--only too glad. But you must remember, my dear, that part of his expenses for this trip was paid for by the firm--the _firm_. He was to call on foreign houses--”
The tigress opened her mouth for fresh assault. Mr. Chater hurriedly thrust in a bone. “I don't say he hasn't done a great deal for us--not at all; I'd be the last to say that. What I say is that in duty to my partners I must take the first opportunity to ask him a few questions about it. Bob sees that himself; don't you, Bob?”
“Oh, do let's keep shop off the table,” Bob snarled. “Fair sickens me this never getting away from the office.”
“There you are!” Mrs. Chater cried. “There you are! Always business, business, business--that's what _I_ complain of.”
With astounding recklessness Mr. Chater mildly said: “My dear, you started it.”
Mrs. Chater quivered: “Ah, put it on me! Put it on me! Somehow you always manage to do that. Miss Humfray, when you've _quite_ finished your soup _then_ perhaps Clarence can take the plates.”
Mary's thoughts, to the neglect of her duty, had crept away beneath cover of these exchanges. Now she endured the disaster of amid silence clearing her plate with four pairs of eyes fixed upon her. Clarence removed the course; Mr. Chater, leaping as far as possible from the scene of his ordeal, broke a new topic.
He enticed tentatively: “I saw a funny bit in the paper this morning.”
The tigress paused in the projection of another spring; sniffed suspiciously. “Oh!”
“About that young Lord Comeragh,” Mr. Chater hurried on, delighted with his success. “He was up at Marlborough Street police-court this morning--at least his butler was; of course his lordship wouldn't go himself--charged with furiously driving his motorcar; and who do you think was in the car with him at the time? Ah!”
Mrs. Chater, naming a young lady who nightly advertised a pretty leg from the chorus of a musical comedy, announced that she would not be surprised if that was the person. Being told that it was none other, and that Mr. Chater had heard in the City that morning that Lady Comeragh was taking proceedings and had named the nicely-legged young lady the cause of infidelity, became highly astonished and supremely diverted.