Lord Ferriby's life was, moreover, one that needed careful obituary
treatment. Everybody's life may for domestic purposes be described as a
hash; but Lord Ferriby's was a hash which in the hands of a cheap
democratic press might easily be served up so daintily as to be very
savoury in the nostrils of the world. Some of its component parts were
indeed exceedingly ancient, and, so to speak, gamey, while the
Malgamite scheme alone might easily be magnified into a very passable
scandal.
Tony came into the room, keen and capable. He did not show much
feeling. Perhaps Joan and he understood each other without any such
display. For they had known each other many years, and had understood
other and more subtle matters without verbal explanation. For the world
had been pleased to say that Joan and Tony must in the end inevitably
marry. And they had never explained, never contradicted, and never
married.
While the three were still talking, a carriage rattled up to the door
of the hotel, and then another. There began, in a word, that hushed
confusion--that running to and fro as of ants upon a disturbed
ant-hill--which follows hard upon the footsteps of the grim messenger,
who himself is content to come so quietly and unobtrusively. Roden
arrived to make inquiries, and Mrs. Vansittart, and a messenger from
more than one embassy. Then the Wades came, brought hurriedly back by a
messenger sent after them by Tony Cornish.
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