A Damsel in Distress

There was a portentous silence. Percy stared at the floor. Lady

Caroline breathed deeply. Lord Marshmoreton, feeling that something

was expected of him, said "Good Gad!" and gazed seriously at a

stuffed owl on a bracket. Maud and Reggie Byng came in.

"What ho, what ho, what ho!" said Reggie breezily. He always

believed in starting a conversation well, and putting people at

their ease. "What ho! What ho!"

Maud braced herself for the encounter.

"Hullo, Percy, dear," she said, meeting her brother's accusing eye

with the perfect composure that comes only from a thoroughly guilty

conscience. "What's all this I hear about your being the Scourge of

London? Reggie says that policemen dive down manholes when they see

you coming."

The chill in the air would have daunted a less courageous girl.

Lady Caroline had risen, and was staring sternly. Percy was pulling

the puffs of an overwrought soul. Lord Marshmoreton, whose thoughts

had wandered off to the rose garden, pulled himself together and

tried to look menacing. Maud went on without waiting for a reply.

She was all bubbling gaiety and insouciance, a charming picture of

young English girlhood that nearly made her brother foam at the

mouth.

"Father dear," she said, attaching herself affectionately to his

buttonhole, "I went round the links in eighty-three this morning.

I did the long hole in four. One under par, a thing I've never done

before in my life." ("Bless my soul," said Lord Marshmoreton

weakly, as, with an apprehensive eye on his sister, he patted his

daughter's shoulder.) "First, I sent a screecher of a drive right

down the middle of the fairway. Then I took my brassey and put the

ball just on the edge of the green. A hundred and eighty yards if

it was an inch. My approach putt--"

Lady Caroline, who was no devotee of the royal and ancient game,

interrupted the recital.

"Never mind what you did this morning. What did you do yesterday

afternoon?"

"Yes," said Lord Belpher. "Where were you yesterday afternoon?"

Maud's gaze was the gaze of a young child who has never even

attempted to put anything over in all its little life.

"Whatever do you mean?"

"What were you doing in Piccadilly yesterday afternoon?" said Lady

Caroline.

"Piccadilly? The place where Percy fights policemen? I don't

understand."

Lady Caroline was no sportsman. She put one of those direct

questions, capable of being answered only by "Yes" or "No", which

ought not to be allowed in controversy. They are the verbal

equivalent of shooting a sitting bird.

"Did you or did you not go to London yesterday, Maud?"

The monstrous unfairness of this method of attack pained Maud. From

childhood up she had held the customary feminine views upon the Lie

Direct. As long as it was a question of suppression of the true or

suggestion of the false she had no scruples. But she had a

distaste for deliberate falsehood. Faced now with a choice between

two evils, she chose the one which would at least leave her

self-respect.