The picture, bold but crude, had its defects. To remedy them, Mrs. Austen applied the brush. "That singing-girl! You know whom I mean. I saw you with her the night we went to the Bazaar."
Paliser nodded. He knew indeed! He knew too that, for a moment, he had fancied that Cassy was in love with Lennox. But that idea he had long since abandoned and what she could now be doing in this galley intrigued him.
With a free hand Mrs. Austen laid on the colours. "You will hardly credit it, but we as good as caught him with her. As good or as bad. It is a matter of taste. For me it was very painful. A woman should be spared such an experience. As for Margaret, while the child certainly did not understand—how could she?—yet, even in her innocence, she realised—well—that he is just what you said."
It was a bit thick and Paliser began to laugh.
Mrs. Austen saw that he did not believe her. The fact annoyed and in vexation she piled it on. "Afterward, in this very room, I taxed him with it and he admitted it."
What a lie! thought Paliser, who specialised in that article. But, a second thought prompting, he wondered whether it were a lie. His knowledge of Cassy refuted it. At the same time, where women are concerned, you never know. One thing, however, he did know. In his quality of expert he knew that there are statements which, whether true or false, may come in handy and, comfortably, he smiled.
"So that was the reason why the engagement was broken."
"What more would you have?" replied the candid creature, who now felt that he had swallowed it.
Quite as comfortably, Paliser returned to his muttons. "I may cease then to be an epicure?"
There was the fish again, but how to land him? The glittering fisherlady could not bind and gag the bait and drop her into his mouth. At any such attempt, the bait would pack and go, might even go without packing. Yet there was the fish, eager, willing, the gills awiggle. Barring a few gold-fish in Bradstreet, in Burke and in Lemprière, this fish was the pick of the basket. To see him glide away, and for no other earthly reason than because the bait refused to be hooked, was simply inhuman. Flesh and blood could not stand it. No, nor ingenuity either. Instantly the angler saw that in default of bait, a net may do the trick and, with the ease of a prestidigitateur, she produced one.