"And it all comes back to me," said Gladys.—"If I had not invited Porshinger to Criss-Cross, this wouldn't have happened."
"Nonsense!" Stephanie interrupted—"you're not to blame."
"No—I'm the guilty party," interrupted Pendleton. "I started the trouble when I had the dispute with Porshinger over the cut of his coat."
"But you wouldn't have had that dispute if Porshinger hadn't spoken slightingly of Stephanie," Gladys remarked.
"And Porshinger would not have had occasion to speak slightingly of me if I hadn't gone off with Amherst," Stephanie concluded. "So the primary guilt is mine—together with the further humiliation of having misjudged Porshinger. On the whole, I've succeeded in making about as complete a muddle of things as can well be imagined."
"I confess that I'm puzzled what to do," Pendleton reflected—"whether to block Lorraine or to let him go on—and we must act quickly if we're to block him. It resolves itself, of course, into which will occasion the less talk—and I'm free to admit I don't know. It looks to me like a case of 'you'll be damned if you do and you'll be damned if you don't.' What do you think, Gladys?"
"I think there isn't much choice. We're in a split stick. One way we face Porshinger's story and meet it with a passive denial, the other way we take the bull by the horns—that is, Lorraine forces us to—and tell the truth in court. As there can't be any question of blackmail, the latter may be the better—it has the merit of sincerity, of faith in the facts. On the whole, I think that it will damn less than the passive denial of Dolittle's story."
"I agree with Gladys:—we haven't much choice in the matter," remarked Stephanie hopelessly. "Lorraine is forcing the issue.—We simply have to meet it. I'm smirched anyway, but I shall be smirched less, it seems to me, by assuming the offensive."