"How very dreadful!"
"Oh; it does not mean anything. I call all those white lies. Nobody notices them. But what she said about Sir Lionel, you know—"
"I really shall not think of anything she said."
"But I must explain to you," said Miss Todd, in whose mind, in spite of her blushing, a certain amount of pleasure was mixed with the displeasure which Mrs. Leake's scandal had caused her. For at this moment Sir Lionel was not a little thought of at Littlebath, and among the Lucretias there assembled, there was many a one who would have felt but small regret in abandoning her maiden meditations at the instance of Sir Lionel Bertram.
"But I must explain to you. Sir Lionel does come to see me very often; and I should think there was something in it—or, rather, I shouldn't be surprised at others thinking so—only that I am quite sure that he's thinking of somebody else."
"Is he?" asked Adela, perhaps not with a great deal of animation.
"Yes; and I'll tell you who that somebody else is. Mind, I shouldn't say anything about it if I wasn't sure; that is almost sure; for one never can be quite sure about anything."
"Then I don't think one ought to talk about people."
"Oh, that's all very well. But then, at such a place as Littlebath, one would have to hold one's tongue altogether. I let people talk of me, and so I talk about them. One can't live without it, my dear. But I don't say things like Mrs. Leake."
"I'm sure you don't."