“No,” said Mrs. Fisher.
“It may require an answer.”
“I don’t approve of tampering with other people’s correspondence.”
“Tampering! My dear lady—”
Mr. Wilkins was shocked. Such a word. Tampering. He had the greatest possible esteem for Mrs. Fisher, but he did at times find her a little difficult. She liked him, he was sure, and she was in a fair way, he felt, to become a client, but he feared she would be a headstrong and secretive client. She was certainly secretive, for though he had been skilful and sympathetic for a whole week, she had as yet given him no inkling of what was so evidently worrying her.
“Poor old thing,” said Lotty, on his asking her if she perhaps could throw light on Mrs. Fisher’s troubles. “She hasn’t got love.”
“Love?” Mr. Wilkins could only echo, genuinely scandalised. “But surely, my dear—at her age—”
“Any love,” said Lotty.
That very morning he had asked his wife, for he now sought and respected her opinion, if she could tell him what was the matter with Mrs. Arbuthnot, for she too, though he had done his best to thaw her into confidences, had remained persistently retiring.
“She wants her husband,” said Lotty.