“No, thank you. I’ve only a moment.”
“May I ask you why you make this inquiry?”
“Of course I must give you my reason. I’m afraid my son will marry her.”
Littlemore was puzzled—then saw she wasn’t yet aware of the fact imparted to him in Mrs. Headway’s note. “You don’t like her?” he asked, exaggerating, in spite of himself, the interrogative inflexion.
“Not at all,” said Lady Demesne, smiling and looking at him. Her smile was gentle, without rancour; he thought it almost beautiful.
“What would you like me to say?” he asked.
“Whether you think her respectable.”
“What good will that do you? How can it possibly affect the event?”
“It will do me no good, of course, if your opinion’s favourable. But if you tell me it’s not I shall be able to say to my son that the one person in London who has known her more than six months thinks so and so of her.”
This speech, on Lady Demesne’s clear lips, evoked no protest from her listener. He had suddenly become conscious of the need to utter the simple truth with which he had answered Rupert Waterville’s first question at the Théâtre Français. He brought it out. “I don’t think Mrs. Headway respectable.”