Millicent put down her teacup. “It is distinctly unfortunate,” she said, “that that man who called himself Peter the Piper should have come into this neighbourhood.” She made the remark with a calm majesty of manner.
“Oh?” queried Miss Haldane, pricking up her ears and looking for all the world like a terrier on the scent of a rat; “do you know anything about him?”
“Only that he has spent three years in prison for forgery,” said Millicent gravely. “Anne has got unaccountably familiar with him in some way, and is naturally vexed to find her friendship misplaced.” She puckered her smooth white brow with an air of grave, gracious anxiety, but there was a hard expression in her eyes.
Miss Haldane ruffled like a small angry bird, the terrier expression forgotten.
“Lady Anne,” she said with dignity, “is certainly not familiar with him. You must have been misinformed.”
“Really!” Millicent lifted her eyebrows coolly. “From Anne’s own showing yesterday, she knew considerably more about him than probably you or I had the smallest idea of. She has not seen fit to confide in me, but it was entirely apparent.”
Miss Haldane sat very upright. “If Anne did know more of him than we imagine,” she remarked firmly, “it shows that he was a more desirable person to know than I had supposed.”
Millicent controlled her temper admirably. Of course, it was entirely absurd, but the old thing was, unquestionably, trying to snub her.
“A man who has been in prison!” she remarked, with an air of quiet finality and an exasperating little laugh.
Miss Haldane’s usually dim old eyes blazed. “Under God we owe Dickie’s recovery to him,” she said with quiet dignity. “Might not that make us a little charitable towards him?”