N. & A. M. WILLIAMSON
TO
_Effendi_
HIS BOOK
THE GOLDEN SILENCE
I
Stephen Knight was very angry, though he meant to be kind and patient
with Margot. Perhaps, after all, she had not given the interview to the
newspaper reporter. It might be what she herself would call a "fake."
But as for her coming to stop at a big, fashionable hotel like the
Carlton, in the circumstances she could hardly have done anything in
worse taste.
He hated to think that she was capable of taking so false a step. He
hated to think that it was exactly like her to take it. He hated to be
obliged to call on her in the hotel; and he hated himself for hating it.
Knight was of the world that is inclined to regard servants as automata;
but he was absurdly self-conscious as he saw his card on a silver tray,
in the hand of an expressionless, liveried youth who probably had the
famous interview in his pocket. If not there, it was only because the
paper would not fit in. The footman had certainly read the interview,
and followed the "Northmorland Case" with passionate interest, for
months, from the time it began with melodrama, and turned violently to
tragedy, up to the present moment when (as the journalists neatly
crammed the news into a nutshell) "it bade fair to end with
marriage-bells."
Many servants and small tradespeople in London had taken shares, Stephen
had heard, as a speculative investment, in the scheme originated to
provide capital for the "other side," which was to return a hundred per
cent.
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