my aunt and her Salon, but about my ... my sister. She was De Mersch's
"_Anglaise_." I did not believe it, but probably all Paris--the whole
world--said she was. And to the whole world I was her brother! Those two
men who had looked at me over their shoulders had shrugged and said,
"Oh, _he's_ ..." And the whole world wherever I went would whisper in
asides, "Don't you know Granger? He's the brother. De Mersch employs
him."

I began to understand everything; the woman in de Mersch's room with
her "Eschingan-Grangeur-r-r"; the deference of the little Jew--the man
who knew. _He_ knew that I--that I, who patronised him, was a person to
stand well with because of my--my sister's hold over de Mersch. I
wasn't, of course, but you can't understand how the whole thing maddened
me all the same. I hated the world--this world of people who whispered
and were whispered to, of men who knew and men who wanted to know--the
shadowy world of people who didn't matter, but whose eyes and voices
were all round one and did somehow matter. I knew well enough how it had
come about. It was de Mersch--the State Founder, with his shamed face
and his pallid hands. She had been attracted by his air of greatness, by
his elective grand-dukedom, by his protestations. Women are like that.
She had been attracted and didn't know what she was doing, didn't know
what the world was over here--how people talked. She had been excited by
the whirl and flutter of it, and perhaps she didn't care. The thing must
come to an end, however. She had said that I should go to her on the
morrow. Well, I would go, and I would put a stop to this. I had
suddenly discovered how very much I was a Granger of Etchingham, after
all I _had_ family traditions and graves behind me. And for the
sake of all these people whose one achievement had been the making of
a good name I _had_ to intervene now. After all--"_Bon sang ne_"
--does not get itself talked about in _that_ way.