"She's very clever."
"Will she care about being clever?" I asked, studying the paragraph again. "Understood to be Mrs. Octon" had a smack of Jenny's own ambiguity and elusiveness. And it hardly sounded as though the house to which he had been carried at his own request were the house where he himself had been lodging.
"Of course it'll be all over Catsford in an hour. There's no helping that. But, as I say, there's no particular harm done yet."
"They'll guess, won't they?"
"Of course they will; but there's all the difference between guessing and having it in print. We must wait. I've got to go out of town—and I'm glad of it."
I did not go away, but I hid myself. The only person I saw that day was Chat: she was entitled to the news.
Telling her was sad work; her devotion to Octon rose up against her accusingly. She railed at herself for all her dealings with Jenny; old-time delinquencies in duty at the Simpsons' dressed themselves in the guise of great crimes; she had been a guilty party to Jenny's misdemeanors; they had led to this.
"I shall have to render an account for it," said poor Chat, rocking her body to and fro, as was her habit in moments of agitation: her speech was obviously reminiscent of church services. "If I had done my duty by her, this would never have happened." I am afraid that "this" meant the scandal, rather than any conduct which gave rise to it. But if Chat were going to be so aggressively penitent as this, the case was lost.
"We must hope for the best—and, anyhow, put the best face on it," I urged.
Chat cheered up a little. "Dear Jenny is very resourceful." Cartmell had observed that she was clever. I was waiting with a vague expectancy for some move from her, some turn or twist in her favor. We had not lost faith in her, any of us; the faith had become blind—if you will, instinctive—surviving even the Waterloo of her flight and this calamitous tragedy.