Insensibly the upper lip lengthened itself a little, and Hugh vaguely wondered if it was going to be suggested that he should beg the Opera Syndicate not to present “Tristan” again, or any little trifle of that sort.
“The key of the situation, a painful one, is in your hands,” continued Dick. “At least, in your capacity as Edith’s husband, it should be.”
Clearly it was not “Tristan.”
“Pray go on,” said Hugh.
“You perhaps guess?” asked Dick.
“I haven’t the vaguest notion.”
“Ah, perhaps you have not been told! Very proper, quite in accordance with the rules of the Literific, though perhaps the spirit of that rule did not seek to ordain that a member should not tell even his wife or husband—or rather she her husband—the subject of a forthcoming paper.”
“Oh, Edith’s paper about the Lady Hamilton letters?” said Hugh guilelessly. “I did know that. In fact, she has read me her paper. But it didn’t occur to me in connection with any possible painful situation. She was rather behindhand with it, but it is quite finished now, if you mean that.”
Even Canon Alington found a momentary difficulty in getting on, for he did not mean that. He quite wished that Mrs. Owen had been left to manage the business alone. But there was still a charitable solution possible.
“Ah, then, I am sure it is as I thought!” he said. “Neither Edith nor you can know the stories that are current, which there is unhappily only too much reason to suppose are true, about poor Nelson and that lady.”