Valentine said:
"You mean . . . Mrs. Christopher Tietjens . . ."
Mrs. Duchemin went on:
"My husband insists that I should ask you. But I will not. I simply will not. I invented for you the excuse of the frock. Of course we could have given you a frock if that man is so mean or so penniless as not to keep you decent. But I repeat, with our official position we cannot—we cannot; it would be madness!—connive at this intrigue. And all the more as the wife appears likely to be friendly with us. She has been once: she may well come again." She paused and went on solemnly: "And I warn you, if the split comes—as it must, for what woman could stand it!—it is Mrs. Tietjens we shall support. She will always find a home here."
An extraordinary picture of Sylvia Tietjens standing beside Edith Ethel and dwarfing her as a giraffe dwarfs an emu, came into Valentine's head. She said:
"Ethel! Have I gone mad? Or is it you? Upon my word I can't understand. . . ."
Mrs. Duchemin exclaimed:
"For God's sake hold your tongue, you shameless thing! You've had a child by the man, haven't you?"
Valentine saw suddenly the tall silver candlesticks, the dark polished panels of the rectory and Edith Ethel's mad face and mad hair whirling before them.
She said: