Page:Leon Wilson - Ruggles of Red Gap.djvu/155

Rh city, Colonel! And may the warm hearts of Red Gap cause you to forget that European world of fashion of which you have long been so distinguished an ornament!

In a sickening silence I finished the thing. As the absurd sheet fell from my nerveless fingers Mrs. Effie cried in a voice hoarse with emotion:

"Do you realize the dreadful thing you've done to us?"

Speechless I was with humiliation, unequal even to protesting that I had said nothing of the sort to the press-chap. I mean to say, he had wretchedly twisted my harmless words.

"Have you nothing to say for yourself?" demanded Mrs. Belknap-Jackson, also in a voice hoarse with emotion. I glanced at her husband. He, too, was pale with anger and trembling, so that I fancied he dared not trust himself to speak.

"The wretched man," declared Mrs. Effie, addressing them all, "simply can't realize—how disgraceful it is. Oh, we shall never be able to live it down!"

"Imagine those flippant Spokane sheets dressing up the thing,", hissed Belknap-Jackson, speaking for the first time. "Imagine their blackguardly humour!"

"And that awful Cousin Egbert," broke in Mrs. Effie, pointing a desperate finger toward him. "Think of the laughing-stock he'll become! Why, he'll simply never be able to hold up his head again."

"Say, you listen here," exclaimed Cousin Egbert with sudden heat; "never you mind about my head. I always been able to hold up my head any time I felt like it." And