‘If I had thought so, my daughter would not have been here to-night,’ she said solemnly. ‘No, no; I do not believe it for an instant, and I brought Jocelyn specially to prove to the world that I do not. I only heard the gossip a few days ago; and to-night, as I sat here, it was borne in upon me that I must speak to you to-night. And I have done so. Not everyone would have done so, dear girl. Most of your friends are content to talk among themselves.’
‘About me? Oh!’ It was the expression of an almost physical pain.
‘What can you expect them to do?’ asked Mrs. Sardis mildly.
‘True,’ I agreed.
‘You see, the circumstances are so extremely peculiar. Your friendship with her—’
‘Let me tell you’—I stopped her—‘that not a single word has ever passed between me and—and the man you mean, that everybody might not hear. Not a single word!’
‘Dearest girl,’ she exclaimed; ‘how glad I am! How glad I am! Now I can take measures to—.
‘But—’ I resumed.
‘But what?’
In a flash I saw the futility of attempting to explain to a woman like Mrs. Sardis, who had no doubts about the utter righteousness of her own code, whose rules had no exceptions, whose principles could apply to every conceivable case, and who was the very embodiment of the vast stolid London that hemmed me in—of attempting to explain to such an excellent, blind creature why, and in obedience to what ideal, I would not answer for the future. I knew that I might as well talk to a church steeple.