Mr. Paramor's face changed with startling speed from its haunting look back to his smile.
“Well,” he said, “for the preservation of morality. What do you suppose?”
“Do you call it moral so to imprison people that you drive them to sin in order to free themselves?”
Mr. Paramor obliterated the face on his blotting-pad.
“Where's your sense of humour?” he said.
“I see no joke, Paramor.”
Mr. Paramor leaned forward.
“My dear friend,” he said earnestly, “I don't say for a minute that our system doesn't cause a great deal of quite unnecessary suffering; I don't say that it doesn't need reform. Most lawyers and almost any thinking man will tell you that it does. But that's a wide question which doesn't help us here. We'll manage your business for you, if it can be done. You've made a bad start, that's all. The first thing is for us to write to Mrs. Bellew, and ask her to come and see us. We shall have to get Bellew watched.”
Gregory said:
“That's detestable. Can't it be done without that?”