“Yes, frightfully, and worse. If I’d had a single grain of sense I should have bolted at once. Anybody might have known what was coming.”
“I shouldn’t. In fact, even now that I know something came, I can’t guess what it was.”
“Instead of bolting I brought out that text of Selby-Harrison’s. He took it like a lamb.”
“Woolly again, only a softer kind of wool.”
“No,” said Lalage, “just meekly; though of course he went on being woolly.”
“There are several authorized interpretations of that text. My mother told me so this afternoon. I suppose the Archdeacon trotted them all out one by one?”
“No. I told you he took it like a lamb. Why won’t you try to understand?”
“Anyhow,” I said, “his demeanour was most encouraging to you. I suppose you suggested Miss Battersby to him at once?”
“No, I didn’t. I couldn’t.”
Lalage hesitated again. She was not speaking with her usual fluency. I tried to help her out.