1
Sir John Corbett had called in the morning. He had exerted himself to that extent out of friendship, pure friendship for Waddington, and he had chosen an early hour for his visit to mark it as a serious and extraordinary occasion. He sat now in the brown leather armchair which was twin to the one Mr. Waddington had sat in when he had his portrait painted. His jolly, rosy face was subdued to something serious and extraordinary. He had come to warn Mr. Waddington that scandal was beginning to attach itself to his acquaintance—he was going to say "relations," but remembered just in time that "relations" was a question-begging word—to his acquaintance with a certain lady.
To which Mr. Waddington replied, haughtily, that he had a perfect right to choose his—er—acquaintance. His acquaintance was, pre-eminently, his own affair.
"Quite so, my dear fellow, quite so. But, strictly between ourselves, is it a good thing to choose acquaintances of the sort that give rise to scandal? As a man of the world, now, between ourselves, doesn't it strike you that the lady in question may be that sort?"
"It does not strike me," said Mr. Waddington, "and I see no reason why it should strike you."
"I don't like the look of her," said Sir John, quoting Major Markham.
"If you're trying to suggest that she's not straight, you're reading something into her look that isn't there."
"Come, Waddington, you know as well as I do that when a man's knocked about the world like you and me, he gets an instinct; he can tell pretty well by looking at her whether a woman's that sort or not."
"My dear Corbett, my instinct is at least as good as yours. I've known Mrs. Levitt for three years, and I can assure she's as straight, as innocent, as your wife or mine."
"Clever—clever and a bit unscrupulous." Again Sir John quoted Major Markham. "A woman like that can get round simple fellows like you and me, Waddington, in no time, if she gives her mind to it. That's why I won't have anything to do with her. She may be as straight and innocent as you please; but somehow or other she's causing a great deal of unpleasant talk, and if I were you I'd drop her. Drop her."