Yet, within a week of Mrs. MacAnder’s encounter in Richmond Park, to all of them⁠—save Timothy, from whom it was carefully kept⁠—to James on his domestic beat from the Poultry to Park Lane, to George the wild one, on his daily adventure from the bow window at the Haversnake to the billiard room at the Red Pottle, was it known that “those two” had gone to extremes.

George (it was he who invented many of those striking expressions still current in fashionable circles) voiced the sentiment more accurately than anyone when he said to his brother Eustace that the Buccaneer was “going it”; he expected Soames was about “fed up.”

It was felt that he must be, and yet, what could be done? He ought perhaps to take steps; but to take steps would be deplorable.