“Girl--!” “If your son told you he caught me with the man who thrashed him as he deserved, he told you a lie. He never saw me with him. He followed me into the Park this morning and tried to repeat what he did on Friday night. He is a coward and a cad. The man to whom I am engaged caught him at it and thrashed him as he deserved. There! Now you know the truth!” Very white, my ridiculous Mary pressed her hand to her panting breast; stopped, choked by the wild words that came tumbling up into her mouth. Very red, swelling and panting in turkey-cock fury, Mrs. Chater, towering, swallowed and gasped, breathless before this vixenish attack. But she was the first to find speech; and incoherently she stormed as at a scratching do those persons whose true selves lie beneath a tissue film of polish. She bubbled and panted: “Oh, you wicked girl!--oh, you wicked girl!--oh, you wicked girl!--bold as brass-calling me a liar--_me_--and my battered boy--engaged indeed!--I'll have the law and the police and the judges--my solicitors--libel and assault, and slander and attempted murder--boxes searched--my precious lambs to hear their mother spoken to like this--get out of the hat-rack, David, and go upstairs this instant--Angela, don't stand there--if I wasn't a lady I'd box your ears, miss--only a week ago didn't I give you a black silk skirt of mine?--and fed you like a princess, with a soft feather pillow too, because you said the bolster made your head ache--servants to wait on you hand and foot--and this is my reward--how I keep my hands off you heaven only knows--but you shall suffer, miss--oh, yes you shall--I'll give you in charge--I'll call a policeman.” She turned towards the kitchen stairs; screamed “Susan! Kate! Jane! Susan!” Small need to bellow. Around the staircase corner three white-capped heads--Kate holding back Susan, Susan restraining Jane, Jane holding Kate--had been with delighted eyes and straining ears bathing in this rare scene. With glad unanimity they broke their restraint one upon the other; crushed pell-mell, hustling up the narrow stairs. Mrs. Chater plumped back into a chair; with huge hands fanned her heated face. “Fetch a policeman!” They plunged for the door. Bob's swollen countenance came over the banisters. He roared “Stop!” Kate, Jane and Susan swung between the conflicting authorities. “Call a policeman! Summon a constable! Fetch an officer!” In gusty breaths from behind Mrs. Chater's hands, working like a red paddle-wheel, came the commands. “Stop!” roared Bob; and to enforce pushed forward the battered face till it stuck out flat over the hall. His alarmed mother screamed: “Bob, you'll fall over the banisters!” The two kept up a battledore and shuttlecock of agitated conversation. “Well, stop those women!” Bob cried; “for God's sake, stop them, mother! What on earth are you thinking of?” “I'll give her in charge!” “You can't, you can't. Oh, my God, what a house this is!” “She called me a liar!”