"Thank you," he
replied, "I will announce myself." (Now you see how we know that
they were engaged. He must have announced himself in order to
have reached the situation implied in the "agony," and he would
not have been allowed to do so if he had not had the standing of
a fiance.)
For a moment before knocking Patrick stood outside the drawing-
room door, and in that moment the tragedy occurred; he heard his
lady's voice. "DARLING!" it said, "she SHALL kiss her sweetest,
ownest, little pupsy-wupsy."
Patrick's brow grew black. His strong jaw clenched (just like the
jaws of those people on the stage), and he staggered back from
the door. "This is the end," he muttered. Then he strode down the
stairs and out into the stifling streets. And up in the drawing-
room of the house in Netting Hill Daisy and the toy pom sat and
wondered why their lord and master was so late.
Now we come to the letter which Patrick wrote to Daisy, telling
her that it was all over. He would explain to her how he had
"accidentally"(he would dwell upon that) accidentally overheard
her and her----(probably he was rather coarse here) exchanging
terms of endearment; he would accuse her of betraying one whose
only fault was that he loved her not wisely but too well; he
would announce gloomily that he had lost his faith in women. All
this is certain. But it would appear also that he made some such
threat as this--most likely in a postscript: "It is no good your
writing.
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