They were apparently sitting on some chairs I had noticed as I came round to the greater obscurity of mine. They were so close that it was practically into my ear that they spoke. The singing was finished, and I fancy the congregation had dispersed, for the organ was playing softly and the glimmer of lights had gone out.
My ears are as quick as any man’s, and I was greatly amused at the situation. “Now,” thought I, “I shall hear what sort of stuff Jellaby inflicts on patient and inexperienced ladies.”
It also occurred to me that it would be interesting to hear how she talked to him, and so discover whether the libel were true that except in my presence she chatted and was jocular. Jocular? Can anything be less what one wishes in the woman one admires? Of course she was not, and Mrs. Menzies-Legh was only (very naturally) jealous. I therefore sat quite still, and became extremely alert and wide awake.
They were certainly not laughing. That, however, may have been the cathedral—not that men of Jellaby’s stamp have even a rudimentary sense of reverence and decency—but anyhow part of the libel was disposed of, for the gentle lady was serious. She was, it is true, a good deal more fluent than I knew her, but she seemed moved by some strong emotion which no doubt accounted for that. What I could not account for was her displaying emotion to a person like Jellaby. The first thing, for instance, that I heard her say was, “It is all my fault.” And her voice vibrated with penitence.
“Oh, but it wasn’t, you know,” said Jellaby.
“Yes, it was. And I feel I ought to take a double share of the burden, and instead I don’t take any.”
Burden? What burden could the tender lady possibly have to bear that would not gladly be borne for her by many a masculine shoulder, including mine? I was about to put my head round the pillar’s edge to assure her of this when she began to speak again.
“I did try—at first,” she said. “But I—I simply can’t. So I shift it on to Di.”
Di, my friends, is Mrs. Menzies-Legh, christened with prophetic paganism Diana.
“An extremely sensible thing to do,” thought I, remembering the wiriness of Di.