"Oh, before Mrs. Levitt."
"Mrs. Levitt?"
"She may have been only a safety valve. That's why I made him adopt you. I thought it would stop it. In common decency. But it seems it only brought it to a head."
"No. It was his canary waistcoat did that, Fanny."
The ghost of dead mirth rose up in Fanny's eyes.
"You're muddling cause and effect, my dear. He wasn't in love because he bought the waistcoat. He bought the waistcoat because he was in love. And those other things—the romantic pyjamas—because he thought they'd make him look younger."
"Well then," said Barbara, "it was a vicious circle. The waistcoat put it into his head that afternoon."
"It doesn't much matter how it happened."
"I'm awfully sorry, Fanny. I wouldn't have let it happen for the world, if I'd known it was going to. But who could have known?"
"My dear, it wasn't your fault."