Page:Tales of the long bow.pdf/240

 their portraits. "Nasty spiteful old men with whiskers," she said, "all bunched together like so many spiders and weaving dirty cobwebs to catch their betters; of course, it's all a conspiracy. Just because they're all mad and hate anybody who's quite sane."

"So you think he's quite sane?" asked her hostess gravely.

"Sane? What do you mean? Of course he's quite sane," retorted Margery Dale.

With a mountainous magnanimity Joan was silent. Then after a pause she said:

"Well, Hilary has taken his case in hand and your friend's safe for the present; Hilary generally brings things off, however queer they sound. And I don't mind telling you in confidence that he's bringing that and a good many other things off, rather big things, just now. You can't keep him from fighting whatever you do; and he seems to be out just now to fight everybody. So I shouldn't wonder if you saw all your old gentleman's heads knocked together after all. There are rather big preparations going on; that friend of his named Blair is for ever going and coming with his balloons and things; and I believe something will happen soon on a pretty large scale, perhaps all over England."