"No, the mater did. Put it pretty straight too--as the mater can.... _She_ didn't deny it. Said she couldn't help herself, and that he was as much hers as Adeline's. I _heard_ that," said Fred shamelessly. "Pretty thick, eh?--considering he's engaged. And the mater gave it her pretty straight. Said, 'I've been very much deceived in you, Miss Waters--very much indeed.' I heard her...." "And then?" "Asked her to go. Said she'd requited us ill for taking her up when nobody but a fisherman would have looked at her." "She said that?" "Well, words to that effect." "And Miss Waters went?" "In a first-class cab, maid and boxes in another, all complete. Perfect lady.... Couldn't have believed if I hadn't seen it--the tail, I mean." "And Miss Glendower?" "Addy? Oh, she's been going it. Comes downstairs and does the pale-faced heroine and goes upstairs and does the broken-hearted part. _I_ know. It's all very well. You never had sisters. You know----" Fred held his pipe elaborately out of the way and protruded his face to a confidential nearness. "I believe they half like it," said Fred, in a confidential half whisper. "Such a go, you know. Mabel pretty near as bad. And the girls. All making the very most they can of it. Me! I think Chatteris was the only man alive to hear 'em. _I_ couldn't get up emotion as they do, if my feet were being flayed. Cheerful home, eh? For holidays." "Where's--the principal gentleman?" asked Melville a little grimly. "In London?" "Unprincipled gentleman, I call him," said Fred. "He's stopping down here at the Métropole. Stuck." "Down here? Stuck?" "Rather. Stuck and set about." My cousin tried for sidelights. "What's his attitude?" he asked. "Slump," said Fred with intensity. "This little blow-off has rather astonished him," he explained. "When he wrote to say that the election didn't interest him for a bit, but he hoped to pull around----" "You said you didn't know what he wrote." "I do that much," said Fred. "He no more thought they'd have spotted that it meant Miss Waters than a baby. But women are so thundering sharp, you know. They're born spotters. How it'll all end----" "But why has he come to the Métropole?" "Middle of the stage, I suppose," said Fred. "What's his attitude?" "Says he's going to see Adeline and explain everything--and doesn't do it.... Puts it off. And Adeline, as far as I can gather, says that if he doesn't come down soon, she's hanged if she'll see him, much as her heart may be broken, and all that, if she doesn't. You know." "Naturally," said Melville, rather inconsecutively. "And he doesn't?" "Doesn't stir." "Does he see--the other lady?" "We don't know. We can't watch him. But if he does he's clever----" "Why?" "There's about a hundred blessed relatives of his in the place--came like crows for a corpse. I never saw such a lot. Talk about a man of good old family--it's decaying! I never saw such a high old family in my life. Aunts they are chiefly." "Aunts?"