The newspapers of the morning following these events--that is to say, of Saturday, July 5--gave very lively accounts of the East End meeting, at which, as some put it, Lady Maxwell "had got her answer" from the East End mob. The stone-throwing, the blow, the woman, and the cause were widely discussed that same day throughout the clubs and drawing-rooms of Mayfair and Belgravia, no less than among the clubs and "publics" of the East End; and the guests at country-house parties as they hurried out of town for the Sunday, carried the gossip of the matter far and wide. The Maxwells went down alone to Brookshire, and the curious visitors who called in St. James's Square "to inquire" came away with nothing to report. "A put-up thing, the whole business," said Mrs. Watton, indignantly, to her son Harding, as she handed him the "Observer," on the Sunday morning, in the dining-room of the family house in Tilney Street. "Of course, a little martyrdom just now suits her book excellently. How that man _can_ let her make him a laughing-stock in this way--" "A laughing-stock?" said Harding, smiling. "Not at all. Don't spoil your first remark, mother. For, of course, it is all practical politics. The handsomest woman in England doesn't give her temple to be gashed for nothing. You will see what her friends will make out of it!--and out of the brutal violence of our mob." "Disgusting!" said Mrs. Watton, playing severely with the lid of the mustard-pot that stood beside her. She and Harding were enjoying a late breakfast _tete-a-tete._ The old Squire had finished long before, and was already doing his duty with a volume of sermons in the library upstairs, preparatory to going to church. Mrs. Watton and Harding, however, would accompany him thither presently; for Harding was a great supporter of the Establishment. The son raised his shoulders at his mother's adjective. "What I want to know," he said, "is whether Lady Maxwell is going to bag George Tressady, or not. He brought her home from the meeting on Friday." "Brought her home from the meeting?--_George Tressady?_" Mrs. Watton raised her masculine head and frowned at her son, as though he were, in some sense, personally responsible for this unseemly fact. "He has been haunting her in the East End for weeks. I got that out of Edward. But, of course, one knew that was going to happen as soon as one saw them together at Castle Luton. She throws her flies cleverly, that woman!" "All I can say is," observed Mrs. Watton, ponderously, "that in any decent state of society such a woman would be banned!" Harding rose, and stood by the open window caressing his moustache. It was a perception of long standing with him, that life would have been better worth living had his mother possessed a sense of humour. "It seems to me," his mother resumed after a pause, "that someone at least should give Letty a hint."