"My dear man, unless I've had a crack of amnesia don't you suppose I know positively that the entire Mayonnaise outfit was designed as dressing for a nut salad?" "Indeed?" "Rather! But mark my words, if she persists in this scandalous venture she'd best make her explanations in Arabic when she gets back. Her story will sound a bit garish in English I fancy! A single gel--a flapper--amid a flock of males Orientally disposed! Why----" Drawing her wrap around her as far as it would go, Lady Speedway shook her dependent chins vigorously and departed. "Oh, my word and tosh!" exclaimed the American. "Old scandal sprinkler!" "Good heavens!" cried his phlegmatic British companion, "isn't it true how one misses one's opportunities? Here I've known Verbeena Mayonnaise all her life and never a breath of scandal has touched her! "In the first place, you know, Verbeena isn't a mere human girl. She had an uncle who was an old pig, her father was a balmy bloater and her brother is an ass!" "O, I say, really?" asked the American, fingering the English tailor's label on his clothing and looking sharply into the ballroom. "Whereas she herself was clearly meant for a boy and was changed at the last moment. She looks like a boy in skirts, a damned pretty boy--and a damned haughty one." "I falter," said the Englishman courteously, "at an attempt to think of a boy no matter how damned pretty he might be, looking haughty in skirts. But have it your own way, old dear. However, please remember the handicap that Lady Speedway has taken on me and don't interrupt in the matter of these Mayonnaises. Why, I was brought up right next to 'em, as it were, and----" "An odd streak in the family?" "Streak? A psychopathic rainbow, old dear! "Her father, Sir John Mayonnaise and his wife were so passionately devoted that they had two children born nineteen years apart. "The first was Lord Tawdry. You've seen him?" "O, quite." "There was discouragement for a devoted couple if you like! "Then when Verbeena was born her mother died immediately. "Ten seconds later Sir John grasped a big pistol and blew his brains somewhere or other. Nobody criticized the act of Sir John save as to the size of the pistol. Least of all he who is now Lord Tawdry." "There was no suicide clause in Sir John's insurance policy, I take it?" "What a sharp devil you are! Exactly. And one doesn't blame Tawd really for what followed regarding Verbeena. That is to say, he turned down about fifty female advisers and decided to bring Verbeena up as a Johnny instead of a Mildred. Can you conceive?" "Not easily." "It was less trouble--it wouldn't, you know, take up so much of his time. He needed all that for training up on bridge and American poker in order to conserve the old patrimony thing." "Brought her up just as a boy?"