Mrs. Lowder faced a moment, in her massive way, what Sir Luke Strett thought. She sat back there, her knees apart, not unlike a picturesque ear-ringed matron at a market-stall; while her friend, before her, dropped their items, tossed the separate truths of the matter one by one, into her capacious apron. "But is that all he came to you for—to tell you she must be happy?"
"That she must be made so—that's the point. It seemed enough, as he told me," Mrs. Stringham went on; "he makes it somehow such a grand possible affair."
"Ah well, if he makes it possible!"
"I mean especially he makes it grand. He gave it to me, that is, as my part. The rest's his own."
"And what's the rest?" Mrs. Lowder asked.
"I don't know. His business. He means to keep hold of her."
"Then why do you say it isn't a 'case'? It must be very much of one."
Everything in Mrs. Stringham confessed to the extent of it. "It's only that it isn't the case she herself supposed."
"It's another?"
"It's another."