‘May I ask where it happened, Mr Twemlow? In strict confidence?’
‘I must confess,’ says the mild little gentleman, coming to his answer by degrees, ‘that I felt some compunctions when Mr Fledgeby mentioned it. I must admit that I could not regard myself in an agreeable light. More particularly, as Mr Fledgeby did, with great civility, which I could not feel that I deserved from him, render me the same service that you had entreated him to render you.’
It is a part of the true nobility of the poor gentleman’s soul to say this last sentence. ‘Otherwise,’ he has reflected, ‘I shall assume the superior position of having no difficulties of my own, while I know of hers. Which would be mean, very mean.’
‘Was Mr Fledgeby’s advocacy as effectual in your case as in ours?’ Mrs Lammle demands.
‘As ineffectual.’
‘Can you make up your mind to tell me where you saw Mr Fledgeby, Mr Twemlow?’
‘I beg your pardon. I fully intended to have done so. The reservation was not intentional. I encountered Mr Fledgeby, quite by accident, on the spot.—By the expression, on the spot, I mean at Mr Riah’s in Saint Mary Axe.’
‘Have you the misfortune to be in Mr Riah’s hands then?’
‘Unfortunately, madam,’ returns Twemlow, ‘the one money obligation to which I stand committed, the one debt of my life (but it is a just debt; pray observe that I don’t dispute it), has fallen into Mr Riah’s hands.’
‘Mr Twemlow,’ says Mrs Lammle, fixing his eyes with hers: which he would prevent her doing if he could, but he can’t; ‘it has fallen into Mr Fledgeby’s hands. Mr Riah is his mask. It has fallen into Mr Fledgeby’s hands. Let me tell you that, for your guidance. The information may be of use to you, if only to prevent your credulity, in judging another man’s truthfulness by your own, from being imposed upon.’