“Yes,” smiled Father Dormer. He was perfectly well aware that she was feeling a trifle nervous.
“Well,” said Trix, “it isn’t going to be quite easy to explain, because I can’t mention names. But as it is a thing I can’t make up my mind about,—about the right or wrong of doing it, I mean,—I thought I’d ask your advice.”
“That is always at your service,” he assured her as she stopped.
Trix heaved a little sigh. She leant forward in her chair, and rested her hands on the table.
“Well then, Father, it’s like this. I know something about someone which another person doesn’t know, and I think it is rather important that they should know it. The first person doesn’t know I know it, and mightn’t quite like it if they knew I knew it. Also I am pretty sure that they don’t want any one else to know it. But under the circumstances I think I’m justified in telling the second person, because it isn’t a thing like a scandal, or anything like that. But the difficulty is, that in telling the second person about the first person, I may either have to tell lies, or disclose a secret about a third person, and that is a secret I have promised not to tell. Do you think I ought to take the risk?”
Father Dormer listened attentively.
“Do you mind saying it again,” he asked politely as she ended. There was just the faintest possible twinkle in his eyes.
Trix laughed outright.
“Oh, Father, don’t try to be polite,” she urged. “I know it is the muddliest kind of explanation that ever existed. Can’t you suggest some way of making it clearer?”
“Supposing,” he said, “you call the first person A, the second B, and the third one C. And let me know first exactly your position towards A.”