Rossiter, imagining
vitriol was about to be thrown over the surviving pug and damage
done generally to the furniture--But at this moment the butler
announced: "Captain Frank Gardner and Miss Warren."
Gardner was well enough, a lean soldierly-looking man, brown with
the African sun, with pleasant twinkling blue eyes, a thick
moustache and curly hair, just a little thin on the top. His face
was rather scarred with African adventure and did not show much
special trace of his last night's tussle with the police. There was
a cut at the back of his head where he had fallen on the kerb stone
but that was neatly plastered, and you do not turn your back much on
a hostess, at any rate on first introduction.
But Vivie had obviously been in the wars. She had--frankly--a black
eye, a cut and swollen lip, and her ordinarily well-shaped nose was
a trifle swollen and reddened. But her eyes likewise were twinkling,
though the bruised one was bloodshot.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Rossiter, to be introduced to you like this. I
don't know _what_ you will think of me. It's the first time I've
been in a really bad row.... We were trying to get to the House of
Commons, but the police interfered and gave us the full privileges
of a man as regards their fists. Captain Gardner here--who is an old
friend of mine--intervened, or I'm afraid I shouldn't have got off
as cheaply as I did.
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