“I am going to tell you something, though,” she said. “It’s because I think you ought to be told at least part of what I know. It may be good for you.”
“For me?” he inquired, calmly, though he well understood what she was going to say next.
“Yes; you might find it wiser to consult your wife next time, even when you’re dealing with people you think are saints.”
“Why, I don’t think Mrs. Braithwaite’s a saint,” he protested. “She looks rather like one—a pretty one, too—and the general report is that she is one; but I don’t know anything more than that about her. She happens to be a neighbour; but we’ve never had the slightest intimacy with her and her husband. We’ve never been in their house or they in ours; I bow to her when I see her and sometimes exchange a few words with her across the hedge between our two yards, usually about the weather. I don’t think anything about her at all.”
“Then it’s time you did,” Mrs. Dodge said with prompt inconsistency.
“All right. What do you want me to think about her, Lydia?”
“Nothing!” she said, sharply. “Oh, laugh if you want to! I’ll tell you just this much: I found out something about her by pure accident; and I decided I’d never tell anybody in the world—not even you. I’m not the kind of person to wreck anybody’s life exactly; and I decided just to bury what I happened to find out. What’s more, I’d have kept it all buried if she’d had sense enough to let me alone. I wouldn’t even have told you that I know something about her.”
“It’s something really serious?”
“ ‘Serious’?” she said. “No, it’s not ‘serious.’ It’s ruinous.”
Mr. Dodge released a sound from his mouth. “Whee-ew!” Whistled, not spoken, it was his characteristic token that he found himself impressed. “You’ve certainly followed the right course, Lydia. Mrs. Leslie Braithwaite’s standing isn’t just a high one; it’s lofty. I shouldn’t care to be the person who blasts that statue off its pedestal;—sometimes statues crush the blasters when they fall. I’m glad you kept your information to yourself.” He paused, and then, being morally but an ordinary man, he added, “Not—not that I see any particular harm in your confiding in my discretion in such a matter.”