ith a red mark down her left cheek, and the key would not
come out of her black hair. It was Florence who had to disentangle it,
for Leonora was in such a state that she could not have brought herself
to touch Mrs Maidan without growing sick.

And there was not a word spoken. You see, under those four eyes--her own
and Mrs Maidan's--Leonora could just let herself go as far as to box Mrs
Maidan's ears. But the moment a stranger came along she pulled herself
wonderfully up. She was at first silent and then, the moment the key was
disengaged by Florence she was in a state to say: "So awkward of me... I
was just trying to put the comb straight in Mrs Maidan's hair...."

Mrs Maidan, however, was not a Powys married to an Ashburnham; she was
a poor little O'Flaherty whose husband was a boy of country parsonage
origin. So there was no mistaking the sob she let go as she went
desolately away along the corridor. But Leonora was still going to play
up. She opened the door of Ashburnham's room quite ostentatiously, so
that Florence should hear her address Edward in terms of intimacy and
liking. "Edward," she called. But there was no Edward there.

You understand that there was no Edward there. It was then, for the
only time of her career, that Leonora really compromised herself--She
exclaimed.... "How frightful!... Poor little Maisie!..."

She caught herself up at that, but of course it was too late. It was a
queer sort of affair....

I want to do Leonora every justice. I love her very dearly for one thing
and in this matter, which was certainly the ruin of my small household
cockle-shell, she certainly tripped up. I do not believe--and Leonora
herself does not believe--that poor little Maisie Maidan was ever
Edward's mistress. Her heart was really so bad that she would have
succumbed to anything like an impassioned embrace. That is the plain
English of it, and I suppose plain English is best. She was really what
the other two, for reasons of their own, just pretended to be. Queer,
isn't it? Like one of those sinister jokes that Providence plays upon
one. Add to this that I do not suppose that Leonora would much have
minded, at any other moment, if Mrs Maidan had been her husband's
mistress. It might have been a relief from Edward's sentimental
gurglings over the lady and from the lady's submissive acceptance of
those sounds. No, she would not have minded.

But, in boxing Mrs Maidan's ears, Leonora was just striking the face