"It was not an actual occurrence," said Miss Jencks, a little coldly, as Roger's irrepressible chuckle echoed from the porch outside, "it was merely a parable—a lesson."
"Oh!" (The exquisite, falling melody of that simple monosyllable expressed so perfectly, through such a trained larynx, all the sudden lack of interest!) "It never happened, then? So of course it does not matter. But why do you call it a lesson, Miss Jencks?"
"Because it teaches Christian charity," said Barbara firmly.
Margarita turned away and dismissed the subject.
"If I ever hired myself to anybody, I would rather he had been taught fairness than Christian charity," she observed, and left Miss Jencks clutching the fruit plate pathetically, her eyes fixed hopelessly on me. For it was always my delicate task to soothe the poor lady after these theological encounters: Roger's uncompromising treatment of the situation had a way of uncomfortably resembling his wife's!
"You know, dear Miss Jencks," I began, as seriously as I could, "she is not really cynical—she is no more irreverent than a child would be. Surely some of your pupils, sometimes ..."
"Never, Mr. Jerrolds, never!" the bulwark of the Governor-General's family protested tearfully, "never, I assure you!"
"Well, well," I said, "it's all the same—they might have. You see, she pays these things the great compliment of taking them seriously—and literally. And they wouldn't work, Miss Jencks, some of them, if one tried them, you know. Just consider the labour unions for one thing: suppose Roger were to pay off his workmen on that principle—they'd fling his money in his face."
