"I ought to be allowed to read the wire," Kitty said.
"No, you ought not," her mother replied. "I have read it, and that is enough. Ada has not read it either."
"Ada," Kitty replied, her voice calm but a flash of fire in her eyes, "is married. It means nothing to her financially that Maurice has disappeared. It means a great deal more to me, and I will read that wire."
"Kitty, see here," Chapman interrupted, feeling his duty as the sole man in the room. "Your mother let me read it, and it isn't the sort of thing a young lady should see. Maurice...he's behaved in a way that's abominable for a gentleman, awful for any sort of man, really."
"Besides," Mrs Hall interjected, "I have destroyed it."
She had not. Kitty had spotted it on the small table at the end of the sofa, and grabbed for it before anyone could stop her.
Maurice meet me Boathouse Penge without fail your Alec
Her mother snatched it from her hands. "Kitty."
Kitty barely heard her; she ran up the stairs and to her bedroom. Violet Tonks had telephoned that morning to announce her engagement. Though Kitty had never cared for Maurice, she found now that she missed him terribly. He was perhaps the only one who could have understood.