The older lady spoke with asperity. "It's a preposterous situation. I'm sorry to remind you, Julia, that I said at the start it would be better to telegraph."
Miss Finch started violently. She recalled Agatha's confidential assurance that Forbes was in love with a despicable young woman named Julia, but that the aforesaid Julia was to marry another man. Yet here she was, undeniably handsome, terrifyingly elegant, and worst of all, with no apparent doubt as to her right to be demanding the immediate producing of Mr. Forbes.
The two women had seated themselves, Aunt Estelle ostentatiously dusting the rocker she trusted with her ample person. Miss Finch proffered a belated and reluctant hospitality.
"If you're thinking of sitting here long, I'll see about getting you something to eat."
Julia brushed the offer aside without thanks. "We shall wait for Mr. Forbes."
"It is really absurd, you know," Aunt Estelle contributed, "for us to sit waiting indefinitely. Burton must be somewhere about. A blind man and an old woman can not possibly walk very far. Why are they not sent for?"
As her inquiry was addressed to Julia, Julia passed it on to Miss Finch, her extremely frigid tone indicating that Miss Finch should have thought of that herself.
"There's nobody to send except the hired girl," Miss Finch explained despairingly. "And she never was known to find anything, even if it was right under her nose. If only Howard—"
Miss Finch checked herself abruptly. A thought had flashed across her mind so dazzling in its brilliancy she could hardly believe herself capable of originating it. Indeed, the probability is that she had not done so, but that some extravagant fancy of Agatha's, falling like seed into her subconsciousness, had lain there dormant till the emergency brought it to swift germination. Zaida Finch had never heard of Victor Hugo's saintly nun, crowning a lifetime of sanctity by a devout and holy lie, but unconsciously she was inspired to emulate her example.
With Miss Finch veracity was almost a mania. She was one of the tiresome people who are continually suspecting themselves of exaggeration or of misrepresentation of something absolutely without importance, and then bore their associates by insisting on their attention while they painstakingly correct their statements. Yet now she forgot her habitual dread of falsehood. If a lie were necessary to save Agatha, lie she must.