"Still I don't quite understand."
"Then I will be quite plain--why do you shut yourself up as if, to use a catch phrase, you were a woman with a past?"
Miss Arnott started perceptibly--the question was wholly unexpected. Rising from her chair she began to re-arrange some flowers in a vase on a table which was scarcely in need of her attentions.
"I was not aware that I did."
"Do you mean that seriously?"
"I imagined that I was entitled to live the sort of life I preferred to live without incurring the risk of criticism--that is what I mean."
"Already you are beginning to be offended. Let us talk of the garden. How is it looking? Your uncle was very proud of his garden. I certainly never saw anything finer than his roseries. Do you still keep them up?"
"Never mind the roseries, or the garden either. Why do you advise me not to move a finger in defence of an innocent man, merely because I choose to live my own life?"
"You put the question in a form of your own; which is not mine. To the question as you put it I have no answer."
"How would you put it?"