‘Give me the paper when you have done with it,’ she said.
Alfred laughed, and whistled a tune as he continued the perusal of Mr. Keene’s political and social intelligence, on the whole as trustworthy as the style in which it was written was terse and elegant. Adela, finding she could feign indifference no longer, went from the room.
‘Where did you get this?’ Mrs. Waltham asked with eagerness as soon as the girl was gone.
‘From the writer himself,’ Alfred replied, visibly proud of his intimacy with a man of letters. ‘Fellow called Keene. Had a long talk with him.’
‘About this?’
‘Oh, no. I’ve only just come across it. But he said he’d marked something for Mutimer. I’m to pass the paper on to him.’
‘I suppose this is the same woman—?’
‘No doubt.’
‘You think it’s true?’
‘True? Why, of course it is. A newspaper with a reputation to support can’t go printing people’s names at haphazard. Keene’s very thick with all the London actors. He told me some first-class stories about—’