“I’m not trying to please Tithers. I’m acting in the interests of public morality.”
“Still,” I said, “there’s no harm in pleasing Tithers incidentally.”
“I have a big meeting on to-night. Hilda takes the chair, and I’ll rub it in about Vittie shamming sick. I never heard anything more disgraceful. Can Tithers be playing the same game, do you think?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Hilda will be able to tell us that when she comes back.”
Hilda came back so soon that I think she must have run part of the way at least. Probably she ran back, when the nurse was not with her.
“He won’t send you the key,” she said, “but he wants you to send him the bag.”
“Is he shamming?” said Lalage, “or has he really got it?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see him.”
“If you didn’t see him,” I said hopefully, “you may be wrong after all about his wanting the bag. He can’t be so selfish.”
“Who did you see?” said Lalage.