At length one morning there was an odd whisper in the circle
of first initiation. The blood mantled on the cheek of Lady
St Julians; Lady Deloraine turned pale. Lady Firebrace wrote
confidential notes with the same pen to Mr Tadpole and Lord
Masque. Lord Marney called early in the morning on the Duke
of Fitz-Aquitaine, and already found Lord de Mowbray there.
The clubs were crowded even at noon. Everywhere a mysterious
bustle and an awful stir.
What could be the matter? What has happened?
"It is true," said Mr Egerton to Mr Berners at Brookes'.
"Is it true?" asked Mr Jermyn of Lord Valentine at the
Canton.
"I heard it last night at Crockford's," said Mr Ormsby; "one
always hears things there four-and-twenty hours before other
places."
The world was employed the whole of the morning in asking and
answering this important question "Is it true?" Towards
dinner time, it was settled universally in the affirmative,
and then the world went out to dine and to ascertain why it
was true and how it was true.
And now what really had happened? What had happened was what
is commonly called a "hitch." There was undoubtedly a hitch
somewhere and somehow; a hitch in the construction of the new
cabinet.
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