'If she didn't ask him, what you say is a great wrong to her,' said Mrs. Nettlepoint.
'Yes, if she didn't. But you say that to protect Jasper, not to protect her,' I continued, smiling.
'You are cold-blooded—it's uncanny!' my companion exclaimed.
'Ah, this is nothing yet! Wait a while—you'll see. At sea in general I'm awful—I pass the limits. If I have outraged her in thought I will jump overboard. There are ways of asking (a man doesn't need to tell a woman that) without the crude words.'
'I don't know what you suppose between them,' said Mrs. Nettlepoint.
'Nothing but what was visible on the surface. It transpired, as the newspapers say, that they were old friends.'
'He met her at some promiscuous party—I asked him about it afterwards. She is not a person he could ever think of seriously.'
'That's exactly what I believe.'
'You don't observe—you imagine,' Mrs. Nettlepoint pursued.' How do you reconcile her laying a trap for Jasper with her going out to Liverpool on an errand of love?'