"Il
y a un element turc dans le mari francais, qui nous rendrait ces
moeurs-la impossibles!"
A la bonne heure! Let the Frenchman keep up his seraglio
standards as he pleased. An Englishman trusts both his wife and his
daughter--scorns, indeed, to consider whether he trusts them or no! And
who comes worst off? Not the Englishman--if, at least, we are to believe
the French novel on the French
menage!He paced thus up and down for an hour, defying his unseen critics--his
mother--his own heart.
* * * * *
Then he went to bed and slept a little. But with the post next morning
there was no letter from Kitty. There might be a hundred explanations of
that. Yet he felt a sudden need of caution.
"Her ladyship comes up this morning by train," he said to Wilson, as
though reading from a note. "There seems to have been a mishap."
Then he took a hansom and drove to the Alcots.
"Is Mrs. Alcot at home?" he asked the butler. "Can I have an answer to
this note?"
"Mrs. Alcot has been in her room since yesterday morning, sir. She was
taken ill just before the coach was coming round, and the horses had to
be sent back.
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