Aloud she said:
“Well, then, why can’t you leave them alone in their sphere, instead of worrying them and spying on them down areas?”
“D’ye mean at Paget Gardens?”
“Of course.”
“Oh!” he laughed. “That wasn’t professional—if you’ll excuse me being so frank. That was just due to human admiration. It’s not illegal to admire a young woman, I suppose, even if she is a suffragette.”
“What young woman are you talking about?”
“Miss Susan Foley, of course. I won’t tell you what I think of her, in spite of all she did, because I’ve learnt that it’s a mistake to praise one woman to another. But I don’t mind admitting that her going off to the north has made me life a blank. If I’d thought she’d go, I should never have reported the affair at the Yard. But I was annoyed, and I’m rather hasty.” He paused, and ended reflectively: “I committed follies to get a word with the young lady, and I didn’t get it, but I’d do the same again.”
“And you a married man!” Audrey burst out, startled, and diverted, at the explanation, but at the same time outraged by a confession so cynical.
The detective pulled a silky moustache.
“When a wife is very strongly convinced that her sphere is the home,” he retorted slowly and seriously, “you’re tempted at times to let her have the sphere all to herself. That’s the universal experience of married men, and ye may believe me, miss—madam.”