CHAPTER IXThe events which succeeded this scene were simply baffling to me. Katy was ordered back from the station to the hotel, and told to unpack all her mistress’s things and put them away. The private car was cancelled. At this, Mrs. Brunton could no longer contain her feelings. She burst out at Mme. Storey wildly.
“How dare you come here interfering in our private affairs! What does your silly meeting mean to us when Darius and Fay are going to be married! I never heard of such a thing....”
The outburst was quite natural. Mrs. Brunton had had a hard life, and Whittall’s twenty millions blinded her to all other considerations. There is no doubt but she loved Fay as if she had been her own child.
Now Whittall, when he heard this, executed a rapid volte-face. A moment before he had se
