‘You may have heard of Professor Hennessy,’ says he—‘a very distinguished man. He told me of her just before his death. Now’—sarcastically—‘have I answered enough of your questions? Is your conscience quite satisfied as to your duty?’
‘It is open to anyone to make light of sacred subjects,’ said Mrs. Prior, with dignity. ‘Duty to me is the one sacred thing in life. I have taken this matter in hand, and, in spite of all you have said, Paul, I may as well warn you that I shall not take your word for it, but shall sift it steadily to the bottom. I consider that my duty to both you and to my daughter.’
‘To Josephine?’
‘Yes, to Josephine. Are you prepared to say that you have no duty towards her?’
‘Not that I am aware of.’
‘After all these years? After all Shangarry has hinted and said? After all the notoriety, the talk, the gossip, of our world? That a man should pay pointed attentions to a girl for two years—should come and go, be received at her mother’s house, and escort her to balls and concerts and to theatres—is all that to go for nothing? Is my poor girl to be cast aside now as though nothing had occurred——’
‘If you are alluding to Josephine,’ says Wyndham coldly and calmly, ‘I can’t see that anything has occurred to cause her annoyance of any kind. I am afraid you are misleading yourself. You ought to speak to your daughter, and she, no doubt, will post you up about it. I, for my part, can assure you that there is nothing between us, nor has there ever been. Your daughter is as indifferent to me as’—emphatically—‘I am to her.’
He feels abominably rude as he says this, but he feels, too, the necessity for saying it. And, after all, the onus of the rudeness lies with her. Mrs. Prior is silent for a moment, more from anger than from inability to speak; then she breaks out:
‘I shall write to Shangarry.’
‘You can write,’ says Wyndham quietly, ‘to anyone on earth you like.’