A Damsel in Distress

"If you knew the circumstances."

"The circumstances? They are in the evening paper. They are in

print."

"In verse," added Lord Marshmoreton. He chuckled amiably at the

recollection. He was an easily amused man. "You ought to read it,

my boy. Some of it was capital . . ."

"John!"

"But deplorable, of course," added Lord Marshmoreton hastily. "Very

deplorable." He endeavoured to regain his sister's esteem by a show

of righteous indignation. "What do you mean by it, damn it? You're

my only son. I have watched you grow from child to boy, from boy to

man, with tender solicitude. I have wanted to be proud of you. And

all the time, dash it, you are prowling about London like a lion,

seeking whom you may devour, terrorising the metropolis, putting

harmless policemen in fear of their lives. . ."

"Will you listen to me for a moment?" shouted Percy. He began to

speak rapidly, as one conscious of the necessity of saying his say

while the saying was good. "The facts are these. I was walking

along Piccadilly on my way to lunch at the club, when, near

Burlington Arcade, I was amazed to see Maud."

Lady Caroline uttered an exclamation.

"Maud? But Maud was here."

"I can't understand it," went on Lord Marshmoreton, pursuing his

remarks. Righteous indignation had, he felt, gone well. It might be

judicious to continue in that vein, though privately he held the

opinion that nothing in Percy's life so became him as this assault

on the Force. Lord Marshmoreton, who in his time had committed all

the follies of youth, had come to look on his blameless son as

scarcely human. "It's not as if you were wild. You've never got

into any scrapes at Oxford. You've spent your time collecting old

china and prayer rugs. You wear flannel next your skin . . ."

"Will you please be quiet," said Lady Caroline impatiently. "Go

on, Percy."

"Oh, very well," said Lord Marshmoreton. "I only spoke. I merely

made a remark."

"You say you saw Maud in Piccadilly, Percy?"

"Precisely. I was on the point of putting it down to an extraordinary

resemblance, when suddenly she got into a cab. Then I knew."

Lord Marshmoreton could not permit this to pass in silence. He was

a fair-minded man.

"Why shouldn't the girl have got into a cab? Why must a girl

walking along Piccadilly be my daughter Maud just because she got

into a cab. London," he proceeded, warming to the argument and

thrilled by the clearness and coherence of his reasoning, "is full

of girls who take cabs."

"She didn't take a cab."

"You just said she did," said Lord Marshmoreton cleverly.