1
"I hope you realize, Horatio, that it was Barbara who got you out of that mess?"
"Barbara showed a great deal of intelligence; but you must give me credit for some tact and discretion of my own," Mr. Waddington said as he left the drawing-room.
"Was he tactful and discreet?"
"His first letters," said Barbara, "were masterpieces of tact and discretion. Before he saw the danger. Afterwards I think his nerve may have gone a bit. Whose wouldn't?"
"It was clever of you, Barbara. All the same, it must have been rather awful, going for her like that."
"Yes."
Now that it was all over Barbara saw that it had been awful; rather like a dog-fight. She had been going round and round, rolling with Mrs. Levitt in the mud; so much mud that for purposes of sheer cleanliness it hardly seemed to matter which of them was top dog at the finish. All she could see was that it had to be done and there wasn't anybody else to do it.
"You see," Fanny went on, "she had a sort of case. He was making love to her and she didn't like it. It doesn't seem quite fair to turn on her after that."
"She did all the turning. I wouldn't have said a thing if she hadn't tried to put the screw on. Somebody had got to stop it."