"Oh! come now," said Billy. "A man who gave up Groombridge—extraordinary silly thing to do, but he is not a humbug!"
Molly turned on him.
"Yes, he is. He knows he made a great mistake and he would undo it if he could."
"Molly, it can't be true!" cried Adela almost tearfully. "If you had only heard him preach last Sunday you couldn't say such hasty, unkind, horrid things!"
"It is true," said Molly.
"Our hostess is pleased to be mysterious," said the fat man, and "you know," turning to Mrs. Delaport Green, "it's very likely that he is sorry he made such a sacrifice, but I don't think that prevents its having been a noble action at the time."
"Or makes him a humbug now," said the soldier. "I believe he is an uncommonly nice fellow."
"Oh! she means something else," said Lady Sophia, looking at Molly with curiosity. "What is it you have against him?"
Molly felt the table to be against her, and it added to her nervous irritability. She was not in any sense drunk, and the drugs she took were in safe doses at present; yet she was to a certain degree influenced both by the champagne she had just taken, and the injection she had given herself when she came in from the theatre.
"You will none of you repeat what I am going to say?"