SEPTIMA (in disgust). Christened after Jenkins!
OLIVER. Oliver Jenkins-Conway, M.P. Good Lord!
SEPTIMA. It will have to be Oliver Conway now.
OLIVER (gloomily). Yes, I suppose so. But everybody will know.
WILLIAM (still fighting). His friends, Isobel. The great friends he had had. The stories he has told us about them—were those all lies too? No, they couldn’t have been. I’ve seen them here myself.
MARION. Why, I remember going to see Uncle Thomas once when I was a little girl—Carlyle—Uncle Thomas I called him.
OLIVER. Well, if it comes to that, I can remember——
ISOBEL. Oh, the friends were there. They accepted him for what he seemed to be, just as we did. He deceived them as cleverly as he deceived us.
WILLIAM. Tennyson, Browning, Swinburne——
ISOBEL (bitterly). Oh, he had his qualities. He talked well. There were his books. Why should they doubt him?