Mr. Jones had some reason for this statement.
"All I have to say is that that poor young creature's heart is broken—yes, broken. I never saw any one so thoroughly and utterly miserable as she is."
Mr. Jones was startled but not convinced.
"I saw her the other day, though not to speak to," Mr. Jones went on. "She went to Skidd's, and I was going in also, but as you objected to my being mixed up with her I drew back. A friend of hers happened to go there on business, and she welcomed him, and I saw her face, and its expression has haunted me ever since."
"As you saw her out with your own eyes, you can understand that when she talks of never going out that is not a perfectly true statement," and Mr. Jones, who was longing to have his own slight misgivings set at rest by his wife, took off his spectacles, rubbed imaginary specs off their polished surface, and replaced them.
"One swallow does not make a summer," said Mrs. Jones, with as much contempt in her meaning as she thought befitting. "It is a fact known to every one here that she has only been seen once, and that she is kept exactly as though the Limes was a prison and her husband a jailer."
"Really, my dear, in these days such expressions are quite absurd."
"Their being absurd does not make them false, and I trust that if you can in any way help that poor thing you will."
"If she went out once she can do so again."
"Not at all a certainty; she may have managed it once, and yet because she did so it may be made impossible for her."