"You 'd never have been satisfied with that woman," she said. "Supposing she had n't married the Kafir? Supposing that being fond of him and believing in him, she had bowed down to your terrible decency and not married? You 'd still have been down on her for liking him, and she 'd have been persecuted if she spoke to him or let him be friendly with her. Is n't that so?"
Mr. Samson pursed his lips and bristled his white mustache up under his nose.
"Yes," he said. "That is so. I won't pretend I 've got any use for women who go in for Kafirs."
"Nobody has." Mrs. Jakes came in again at the tail of his reply with all the confidence of a faithful interpreter.
Margaret, marking her righteous severity, had an impulse to stun them both with a full confession. She found in herself an increasing capacity for being irritated by Mrs. Jakes, and had a vision of her, flattened beyond recovery, by the revelation. She repressed the impulse because the vision went on to give her a glimpse of the tragedy that would close the matter.
Ford had not yet spoken. He sat beside her, listening. Across the room, Dr. Jakes was listening also. She put the question to him.
"What do you think, Dr. Jakes?" she asked.
"Eh?" He started at the sound of his name and put up an uncertain hand to straighten his spectacles.
"About all this—about the general principle of it?" she particularized.
"Oh, well." He hesitated and cleared his throat. There was a fine clear-cut idea floating somewhere in his mind, but he could not bring it into focus with his thoughts.