I think she uttered the name quite on the spur of the moment and with no previous intention of taking that way out. At all events, for a moment or two the suggestion seemed rather to impress the old lady, then she shook her head.
“I don’t say that Nora Lepley—Philip Clevedon was like all other men, I dare say, no better and no worse. But he wouldn’t want to marry her. They might fight over Nora Lepley, yes, but it wouldn’t be because either of them wanted to marry her.”
“Why shouldn’t they want to marry Nora—she is very nice?” Kitty said.
“Don’t talk nonsense, child,” the old lady cried.
“These are democratic days—” I was beginning, but the old lady turned on me almost ferociously.
“I wasn’t asking you for your views,” she said. “And we’ll leave it at that. These two men quarrelled over Nora Lepley, or Jane Smith, or Martha Tompkins, and so—”
I rose from my seat and stood regarding them with a smile.
“And so my question goes unanswered,” I murmured, “and my brick wall remains.”
The old lady looked from me to Miss Kitty Clevedon and then back again.
“Yes,” she said, “and that ends the case. You must drop it—do you hear?—drop it. I am getting in deeper than I thought.”