"What is the other thing?"
He lowered his voice, and Mrs. Oxenham did not answer him for some minutes, Jenny being present, looking rather unusually dignified, arranging the tray on the table. A faint perfume of violets exhaled from that small person as she passed him, whereby he knew that she had his flowers about her somewhere—in her breast, he fancied. He rose and stood, as he always did, when she was moving about him.
"The other thing," continued Mary, when he again took his seat, "is that you expose that poor girl to injurious suspicions."
"Good Heavens!" he ejaculated.
"It is of her that I think, and of whom you ought to think—not of your own idle man-about-town whims. You see she is a lady, Tony, not the sort of person one usually finds in these places—really a lady, I mean."
"Certainly. And I never thought of her as anything else, I assure you."
"She is quite helpless, poor child. She can't prevent men from coming in by themselves and loafing here, if they choose to do it. I don't think she ever sufficiently considered what she might be exposing herself to in that way, when she entered upon this business; but I know she intended the place to be a ladies' place."
Mrs. Oxenham sipped her tea with a vexed air, while Tony looked at her gravely, drawing his moustache between his lips, and meditatively biting it.
"You see, Tony, a number of people come here who know you, at any rate by sight—I can count at least half a dozen at this moment—and what do you suppose they say when they see you as I saw you just now?"
"I don't think I care much what they say."