All this, then, was in Mrs. Lenoir's mind when Winnie came back from Shaylor's Patch, her thoughts still occupied with two questions. One related to Dick Dennehy; it was a private matter and did not concern her hostess. But the problem of conduct which she had submitted to the Aikenheads did. On that she was bound in loyalty to consult Mrs. Lenoir. That lady had indeed given an opinion once, but circumstances alter cases. As she ate her dinner, she described humorously the difference of opinion between husband and wife, putting the case in the abstract, of course, without explicit reference to the Major, and taking the liberty of implying that it was Stephen who had initiated the debate. These concessions to modesty and discretion scarcely deceived Mrs. Lenoir, though she accepted them decorously. Both women knew that it was Bertie Merriam who might make a settlement of the point necessary before many days, or, at all events, many weeks, were out.
Worldly-wise Mrs. Lenoir took up a middle position. She was not prepared for Tora's uncompromising doctrine; yet she agreed with the view that there was much to be said for telling people what they might probably find out—and find out too late in their own opinion. All the same, she dissented from Stephen's extreme application of the rule of candour.
"You wouldn't accept a man without telling him, but you needn't blurt it out to anybody who makes you a few pretty speeches."
"Wouldn't it be fair to tell him before he got much in love?"
"If he wasn't much in love, he'd be rather inclined to smile over your telling him, wouldn't he?"
The suggestion went home to Winnie. "I shouldn't want to risk that."
"Unless circumstances make it absolutely necessary, I should let things stay as they are till your case is over, at all events. It'll be so much pleasanter for you to be incog. till then."
There was something in that suggestion too. Not great on theory, Mrs. Lenoir took good practical points.
"It's rather giving up my point of view," Winnie objected.
Mrs. Lenoir smiled in a slightly contemptuous kindness. "Oh, my poor child, take a holiday from your point of view, as well as from all the rest of it. And really it's quixotic of you to be so much afraid of giving some man or other a little shock, after all they've made you suffer."