"I cannot tell. There might be reasons why she should not have heard it, May."
"Well, at all events, I have been thinking that I will write to her and ask. If she does know, and is keeping her knowledge back from me for any reason—some of Aunt Pauline's mysterious dancing before deaf people, you know—that will make her speak out."
"I don't see why you should not write to her, if you choose, May."
Mrs. Dobbs had little doubt that Mrs. Dormer-Smith would be annoyed and perturbed by May's writing to her on the subject, whether the story of the marriage were true or false, and whether she herself had or had not heard of it. But Mrs. Dobbs was in no mood to shield Pauline from annoyance or perturbation.
"She and her 'gentleman of princely fortune,' indeed!" said Mrs. Dobbs to herself. "Why couldn't she say old Joshua Bragg? and then one would have known where one was."
So it was settled that May should write to her aunt.
CHAPTER IX.
Theodore Bransby at first indignantly repudiated Valli's scandals about Captain Cheffington. He was quite unprepared for them, having, it may be remembered, heard nothing of Miss Piper's story, told at the dinner-party in his father's house; and having, moreover, loftily snubbed every one in Oldchester who ventured to hint anything to the disparagement of his distinguished friend. What could Oldchester know about such persons as the Cheffingtons?
But general testimony and public opinion were too strong for him, and he was forced to give up his distinguished friend. He fell back on mysterious hints of sympathy and intimacy with "the family," and allusions to what "poor dear Lucius" had said to him on the last occasion of their dining together at Mrs. Dormer-Smith's.