"Going about making love indeed,--in abdominal belts!--at his time of
life!"
I cannot imagine what passed between her and my uncle. But I have no
doubt that for once her customary badinage was laid aside. How they
talked then I do not know, for I who knew them so well had never heard
that much of intimacy between them. At any rate it was a concerned and
preoccupied "God in the Car" I had to deal with in the next few days,
unusually Zzzz-y and given to slight impatient gestures that had nothing
to do with the current conversation. And it was evident that in all
directions he was finding things unusually difficult to explain.
All the intimate moments in this affair were hidden from me, but in
the end my aunt triumphed. He did not so much throw as jerk over Mrs.
Scrymgeour, and she did not so much make a novel of it as upset a huge
pailful of attenuated and adulterated female soul upon this occasion.
My aunt did not appear in that, even remotely. So that it is doubtful
if the lady knew the real causes of her abandonment. The Napoleonic hero
was practically unmarried, and he threw over his lady as Napoleon threw
over Josephine for a great alliance.
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