Mr. Sitwell and Mr. Bright had come in from one of their many services in the pause of awe which followed the severe statement of Joyce’s fabulous origin. ‘Who was that?’ said the curate, in Miss Dolly’s ear.
‘Oh, the girl at the Haywards’—don’t you know? You ought to know, for you saw a great deal of her in the summer. You ought to have found out all her secrets.’
‘I never pry into a lady’s secrets,’ said the curate.
‘Oh, don’t you just! But she turns out to be nothing and nobody, though they took her everywhere. Did you ever hear such awful cheek?’
‘I always tell you, Miss Dolly, human nature is so depraved—except in some exceptional cases,’ Mr. Bright said, with an ingratiating smile, bending over the young lady’s chair.
Mr. Sitwell asked the same question of the elder circle, standing up in the severity of his clerical coat amid the group of ladies. Two or three answered him at once.
‘It is Joyce, Austin,’ his wife said, in a faint voice.
‘It is Miss Hayward.’
‘It is,’ said Lady St. Clair, emphatically, ‘the young person—Colonel Hayward’s protégée—whose appearance has always been such a wonder to us.’
‘Dora,’ the parson said, in consternation, ‘you never told me this.’