“No doubt, she does seem to have made a mess of things. Why now did she leave her first husband?”
Aurelia looked down and away.
“It is not a thing I could mention.”
Buttercups gave a little jump. “What?”
Perversely, her lovely eyes still lowered, Aurelia added:
“She caught him in the act.”
Buttercups jumped again.
Aurelia blushed or rather appeared to do so. “With her own eyes she saw him eating fish with his knife.”
But Buttercups had rallied. “Now, Aurelia,” he protested, “I have heard too many lies about myself, too many confounded lies, to believe any such story.”