'I don't know. But she is. If she was my wife I should kill her one night. Don't you know what I mean?'
'Yes, I quite agree with you,' I said. 'But you seemed to be awfully good friends with her.'
'No use being anything else. No woman that it ever pleased Providence to construct is going to frighten me away from the draught Burton that you can get at the Tiger. Besides, she can't help it. She was born like that.'
'She TALKS quite ordinarily,' I remarked.
'Oh! It isn't what she says, particularly. It's HER. Either you like her or you don't like her. Now Colclough thinks she's all right. In fact, he admires her.'
'There's one thing,' I said, 'she jolly nearly cried tonight.'
'Purely mechanical!' said Mr Brindley with cruel curtness.
What seemed to me singular was that the relations which had existed between Miss Annie Brett and Simon Fuge appeared to have no interest whatever for Mr Brindley. He had not even referred to them.
'You were just beginning to draw her out,' I ventured.
'No,' he replied; 'I thought I'd just see what she'd say. No one ever did draw that woman out.'