Then he was thrust once again
into the cold grey background by the sudden blossoming into importance of
Smith-Paddon, a daily fellow-traveller, whose little girl had been
knocked down and nearly hurt by a car belonging to a musical-comedy
actress. The actress was not in the car at the time, but she was in
numerous photographs which appeared in the illustrated papers of Zoto
Dobreen inquiring after the well-being of Maisie, daughter of Edmund
Smith-Paddon, Esq. With this new human interest to absorb them the
travelling companions were almost rude when Blenkinthrope tried to
explain his contrivance for keeping vipers and peregrine falcons out of
his chicken-run.
Gorworth, to whom he unburdened himself in private, gave him the same
counsel as heretofore.
"Invent something."
"Yes, but what?"
The ready affirmative coupled with the question betrayed a significant
shifting of the ethical standpoint.
It was a few days later that Blenkinthrope revealed a chapter of family
history to the customary gathering in the railway carriage.
"Curious thing happened to my aunt, the one who lives in Paris," he
began. He had several aunts, but they were all geographically
distributed over Greater London.
"She was sitting on a seat in the Bois the other afternoon, after
lunching at the Roumanian Legation."
Whatever the story gained in picturesqueness from the dragging-in of
diplomatic "atmosphere," it ceased from that moment to command any
acceptance as a record of current events.
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