She put out her hand and Marcus took it and held it as delicately and as carefully as he would have held a vase of the Ming period.
“The Flueyns must be happy,” she said. “You will see that they are.”
“I have very little influence—really.”
“Is that quite true?”
“Not quite.”
Mrs. Sloane said that was rather a comfort to her because she had a confession to make. She had not been quite—well, truthful herself. Marcus was a little alarmed. He could not imagine an elderly woman in a bath-chair departing in any way from the path of goodness and righteousness. He asked what she had to confess and asked it so charmingly that she vowed he had missed his vocation in life. “You would forgive so nicely,” she explained.
“Hardly as nicely as you would tell a—lie,” he suggested.
“A lie is perhaps a little too strong—no, I suppose it’s not—I led you to believe I did not know Shan’t, whereas I know her very well: and of course I know Elsie. I live in Bestways, and I have known her for a long time, and the longer I know her the better I love her. Now, am I forgiven?”
“The best thing I have heard of her is that you are her friend,” said Marcus.
“How nice of you—to tell an untruth so charmingly! But tell me why you dislike each other so much? It was in order to find out if Elsie was justified in her ridiculous attitude towards you that I did not tell you who I was.”