“It isn’t men. It’s Sam. After all I’ve done for him! Oh!” and this was a different “oh” from the others. It made Mrs. Grandage look up sharply. “The beast! The beast! This explains it all. Ethel, that man came home to me and asked me to adopt his child. He had the face. Of course I didn’t know it was his own he was speaking of, but I see it now. Ethel, what shall I do?”
They seemed to Mrs. Grandage to be drifting into deeper waters than she had skill to swim in. “I should take advice,” she said, meaning nothing except that neither by advising nor anything else was she going to be entangled in this affair.
“A solicitor’s?” asked Ada, catching at the phrase. “Yes. Naturally. Sam shall be made to pay to the uttermost farthing.” Her idea of legal obligations were, perhaps, not vaguer than other people’s.
“Not a solicitor’s,” said Mrs. Grandage in despair. “At least, my dear, not yet. Your father’s.”
“Yes. My father made me marry Sam. He brought Sam home and threw him at me. I will go to my father. Of course, in any case, I can’t stay here.”
Mrs. Grandage made a last rally for wordly-wisdom. “Couldn’t you bring yourself to see your husband first?” she asked.
“See him!” said Ada heroically. “I will never see him again as long as I live.”
The visitor buttoned her glove. After all, if Ada chose to make a fool of herself it was no business of hers, and she had tried her best, if a resolutely non-committal attempt can be a best. She kissed Ada with real sympathy.
“My dear,” she said, “I’d give a great deal to undo this.” And by “this” she did not mean the peccadillo of Sam Branstone, but the pruriency of Miss Entwistle. She was an experienced woman, and angry with herself for having listened to the temptress and for aiding and abetting her.
When Mrs. Grandage referred in after years to “that woman,” it was understood that she was thinking of Miss Entwistle.