“Do I understand, or don’t I, sir,” she said, “that her shame is to be my care and consideration? And till when, if you’ll be so good?”
“That I can’t say,” he answered. “Probably the interval, the abyss in her mind, will bridge itself by slow degrees. Her reason likely depends upon your not rudely hastening the process. I warn you, that’s all.”
“And pray,” she said, with ineffable sarcasm, “how is I, as a respectable woman, to account to her for this that I hold?”
“Put it out to nurse.”
“No, sir, if you’ll allow me. The hussy have done her best to bring me to ruin already.”
“Say you’ve adopted it.”
She gave a shrill titter.
“Nanny will have lost her wits, hindeed, to believe that.”
“Well, she has in a measure.”
“And the police?” she said. “Aren’t you a little forgetting them, sir?”