would be obliged if you would do it to my face. It is a small courtesy. I am told it is also a great mercy."
Nobody moved. Theodora saw Lady Cressingham's mouth fall open, and Mrs. Pelling's fan stop in mid-air, and Lord Selby's handsome face go a dull and spreading red.
And then, from the foot of the table, a small sharp voice in silver tissue said: "And since we are being candid, Selby, you may speak up to me as well. I have been deaf in the left ear for forty years, and I have heard every unkind thing you ever said about me only because you have the misfortune to say them on the right."
The Duke turned and stared at his mother down the whole length of the supper table. It was, Theodora thought, the only time she ever saw him look entirely astonished.
Then somebody began to laugh — not the uncertain laughter of before; something warmer, and more surprised, the laughter of people who have been let into a room they did not know was there — and somebody else, an old general with one arm, banged on the table with his good hand and said, "Hear, hear," and the noise of the supper room rose and rose again, and swept Lord Selby under it like a pebble.
Theodora put down her ice. She went to the head of the table, past her mother, past Mrs. Pelling, past forty people who had never in three Seasons noticed she was there, and stopped where the candlelight fell full on her face, and said, squarely, to him and to all of them:
"The sentence his Grace quoted is from a book called A Plain Address to the Families of the Deaf. It was printed in Fetter Lane, at a shilling, by a Sister. I wrote it. My brother has been deaf from birth." She heard her mother's breath go in, behind her, and did not turn round. "The second edition will have my name on it. There will be a list of subscribers in the front, for a day school for the deaf children of working people, in Red Lion Court. Mrs. Bartle of Fetter Lane will take your names, if you would like to subscribe. The subscription is a guinea." She paused. "I would be very much obliged to anyone who did."
There was a silence. Then the Dowager, from the foot of the table, said, "Put me down for ten," in a voice like the slam of a door; and the general with one arm said, "Five"; and then, after a moment, from somewhere among the young men, Mr. Quilling said, "One — I'm afraid I have only one, I lent Vossey twenty," and the supper room laughed again, and that was how it began.