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Tenterhooks by Ada Leverson
page 122 of 230 (53%)

CHAPTER XVI

More of the Mitchells

Edith had become an immense favourite with the Mitchells. They hardly
ever had any entertainment without her. Her success with their friends
delighted Mrs Mitchell, who was not capable of commonplace feminine
jealousy, and who regarded Edith as a find of her own. She often
reproached Winthrop, her husband, for having known Bruce eight years
without discovering his charming wife.

One evening they had a particularly gay party. Immediately after dinner
Mitchell had insisted on dressing up, and was solemnly announced in his
own house as Prince Gonoff, a Russian noble. He had a mania for
disguising himself. He had once travelled five hundred miles under the
name of Prince Gotoffski, in a fur coat, a foreign accent, a false
moustache and a special saloon carriage. Indeed, only his wife knew all
the secrets of Mitchell's wild early career of unpractical jokes, to
some of which he still clung. When he was younger he had carried it
pretty far. She encouraged him, yet at the same time she acted as
ballast, and was always explaining his jokes; sometimes she was in
danger of explaining him entirely away. She loved to tell of his
earlier exploits. How often, when younger, he had collected money for
charities (particularly for the Deaf and Dumb Cats' League, in which he
took special interest), by painting halves of salmon and ships on fire
on the cold grey pavement! Armed with an accordion, and masked to the
eyes, he had appeared at Eastbourne, and also at the Henley Regatta, as
a Mysterious Musician. At the regatta he had been warned off the
course, to his great pride and joy. Mrs Mitchell assured Edith that his
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