“Are we to send you to a madhouse? What do you mean by your blazing folly? Before the whole county--before the duchess--before the princess! Do you know what I have had to go through the last half-hour? Do you know that we may never set foot in Chiltern Towers again? Do you know we are the scandal and the laughing-stock of the county? As if one thing was n't sufficient--for you to crown it by behaving like a hysterical school-girl! Do you know what interpretation every scandal-mongering tabby in the place is putting on your insane conduct?” “Oh, yes,” said Norma, looking at her mother stonily; “and for once in their spiteful lives they are quite right.” “What do you mean?” gasped Mrs. Hardacre. “I think my meaning is obvious.” “That man--that painter man dressed like a secondhand clothes-dealer--that--that beast?” Mrs. Hardacre could scarcely trust her senses. The true solution of her daughter's extraordinary behaviour had never crossed her most desperate imaginings. But then she had not had much time for quiet speculatien. The speeding of her hurriedly departing guests had usurped all the wits of the poor lady. “You have indeed given us a dramatic entertainment, dear Mrs. Hardacre,” Lady FitzHubert had said with a sympathetic smile. “And poor Norma has supplied the curtain. I hope she won't take it too much to heart.” And Mrs. Hardacre, livid with rage, had had no weapon wherewith to strike her adversary who thus took triumphant vengeance. It had been a half-hour of grievous humiliation. The fount and origin thereof was lying unconscious with a bullet through his shoulder. The subsidiary stream, so to speak, was in her room safe and sound. Human nature, for which she is not deserving of over-blame, had driven Mrs. Hardacre thither. At least she could vent some of her pent-up fury upon her outrageous daughter, who, from Mrs. Hardacre's point of view, indeed owed an explanation of her action and deserved maternal censure. This she was more than prepared to administer. But when she heard Norma calmly say that Lady FitzHubert and the other delighted wreakers of private revenges were entirely in the right, she gasped with amazement. “That beast!” she repeated with a rising intonation. Norma gave her habitual shrug of the shoulders. With her proud, erect bearing, it was a gesture not ungraceful. “Considering what I have just admitted, mother, perhaps it would be in better taste not to use such language.” “I don't understand your admitting it. I don't know what on earth you mean,” said Mrs. Hardacre. There was a short pause, during which she scanned her daughter's face anxiously as if waiting to see a gleam of reason dawn on it. Norma reflected for a moment. Should she speak or not? She decided to speak. Brutal frankness had ever been her best weapon against her mother. It would probably prevent future wrangling.