“True. So are a good many other people.”
“I should have to consider my father and—and the family.”
“Should you? I should see the family damned. However, it comes to this—if it were true, you wouldn’t marry her.”
“How could I?” groaned Gerald. “We should be cut.”
Mr. Blodwell smiled.
“Well, my ardent lover,” he said, “that being so, you’d better do nothing till you see whether it’s true.”
“Not at all. I only took the hypothesis; but I haven’t the least doubt that it’s a lie.”
“A mistake—yes. But it’s in the Bull’s-eye, and a mistake in the newspapers needs to be reckoned with.”
“What shall I do?”