"Yes—bat!" said Mrs. Carnby.
Jeremy wisely made no reply.
So it was that when, at the end of the three weeks, Mr. Thomas Radwalader came down to spend the day, he found his hostess in a fine glow of suppressed impatience. She seized the first moment when they were alone to question him. They were old friends. He never laid claim to much in the way of morality in the presence of Mrs. Carnby, and it is a characteristic of this attitude that the person adopting it is frequently his own worst critic, and has more credit allowed to him than he deserves. Even the devil is not so black as he is painted, and if he will have the audacity to do most of the painting in question himself, he is more than likely to find that, in the opinion of others, his complexion will be comfortably free from blemishes. Radwalader's smooth assumption of an indefinite kind of laxity, set at ease rather than aroused Mrs. Carnby's suspicions of him.
"He can't be so very bad," she told herself, "or he wouldn't talk so much about it."
For unnecessary admissions are a sedative to gossip, just as unnecessary concealments are a stimulant.
"How's Mr. Vane?" demanded Mrs. Carnby abruptly.
"Why, I was about to ask you," answered Radwalader. "I thought he was quite a protégé of yours. I've not seen much of him, myself, of late. He's made new friends, and of course I was never much more than a preliminary guide to Paris. I fancy he can find his own way about, nowadays."
"I'll warrant he can!" exclaimed Mrs. Carnby, "and into society none too good, at that!"
"How so?"