“Oh well, if you’ve done it on purpose to triumph over me we might as well go home, certainly. But I guess,” Delia added, “you had better just wait till Gaston comes.”
“It will be worse when he comes—if he thinks the same as they do.”
“HAVE they insulted you—have they?” Mr. Dosson repeated while the smoke of his cigar, curling round the question, gave him the air of putting it with placidity.
“They think I’ve insulted THEM—they’re in an awful state—they’re almost dead. Mr. Flack has put it into the paper—everything, I don’t know what—and they think it’s too wicked. They were all there together—all at me at once, weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth. I never saw people so affected.”
Delia’s face grew big with her stare. “So affected?”
“Ah yes, I guess there’s a good deal OF THAT,” said Mr. Dosson.
“It’s too real—too terrible; you don’t understand. It’s all printed there—that they’re immoral, and everything about them; everything that’s private and dreadful,” Francie explained.
“Immoral, is that so?” Mr. Dosson threw off.
“And about me too, and about Gaston and my marriage, and all sorts of personalities, and all the names, and Mme. de Villepreux, and everything. It’s all printed there and they’ve read it. It says one of them steals.”
“Will you be so good as to tell me what you’re talking about?” Delia enquired sternly. “Where is it printed and what have we got to do with it?”