It was plain enough she was anxious; her manner had become more vehement; her eyes seemed to shine in the thickening dusk. “Are you very sure there’s danger?” Waterville asked. “Has he proposed to her and has she jumped at him?”
“If I wait till they settle it all it will be too late. I’ve reason to believe that my son’s not engaged, but I fear he’s terribly entangled. At the same time he’s very uneasy, and that may save him yet. He has a great sense of honour. He’s not satisfied about her past life; he doesn’t know what to think of what we’ve been told. Even what she admits is so strange. She has been married four or five times. She has been divorced again and again. It seems so extraordinary. She tells him that in America it’s different, and I dare say you haven’t our ideas; but really there’s a limit to everything. There must have been great irregularities—I’m afraid great scandals. It’s dreadful to have to accept such things. He hasn’t told me all this, but it’s not necessary he should tell me. I know him well enough to guess.”
“Does he know you’re speaking to me?” Waterville asked.
“Not in the least. But I must tell you I shall repeat to him anything you may say against her.”
“I had better say nothing then. It’s very delicate. Mrs. Headway’s quite undefended. One may like her or not, of course. I’ve seen nothing of her that isn’t perfectly correct,” our young man wound up.
“And you’ve heard nothing?”
He remembered Littlemore’s view that there were cases in which a man was bound in honour to tell an untruth, and he wondered if this were such a one. Lady Demesne imposed herself, she made him believe in the reality of her grievance, and he saw the gulf that divided her from a pushing little woman who had lived with Western editors. She was right to wish not to be connected with Mrs. Headway. After all, there had been nothing in his relations with that lady to hold him down to lying for her. He hadn’t sought her acquaintance, she had sought his; she had sent for him to come and see her. And yet he couldn’t give her away—that stuck in his throat. “I’m afraid I really can’t say anything. And it wouldn’t matter. Your son won’t give her up because I happen not to like her.”
“If he were to believe she had done wrong he’d give her up.”
“Well, I’ve no right to say so,” said Waterville.
Lady Demesne turned away; he indeed disappointed her and he feared she was going to break out: “Why then do you suppose I asked you here?” She quitted her place near the window and prepared apparently to leave the room. But she stopped short. “You know something against her, but you won’t say it.”