She did not start nor utter any exclamation. Somehow or other she almost knew he was there before she opened the window.
“Well?” said she, with a world of meaning.
“You grant me a hearing at last.”
“I do. But it is no use. You cannot explain away a falsehood.”
“Of course not. I am here to confess that I told a falsehood. But it was not you I wished to deceive. I was going to explain the whole thing to you, and tell you all; but there is no getting a word with you since that lord came.”
“He had nothing to do with it. I should have been just as much shocked.”
“But it would only have been for five minutes. Zoe!”
“Well?”
“Just put yourself in my place. A detective, who ought to have written to me in reply to my note, surprises me with a call. I was ashamed that such a visitor should enter your brother's house to see me. There sat my rival—an aristocrat. I was surprised into disowning the unwelcomed visitor, and calling him my solicitor.”
Now if Zoe had been an Old Bailey counsel, she would have kept him to the point, reminded him that his visitor was unseen, and fixed a voluntary falsehood on him; but she was not an experienced cross-examiner, and perhaps she was at heart as indignant at the detective as at the falsehood: so she missed her advantage, and said, indignantly, “And what business had you with a detective? You having one at all, and then calling him your solicitor, makes one think all manner of things.”