'Edith!'
'Yes, it is I. Odd that we should both have taken into our heads to pay Mrs. Merrett a morning call; isn't it, Douglas?'
'What--what are you doing here?'
'That is precisely the inquiry I was about to put to you. Because it would really seem as if your reiterated assurance to me last night that you took no personal interest whatever in Mrs. Merrett was--What shall we call it, Douglas?'
'I don't know what bee you've got in your bonnet lately. I believe you're going mad.'
'I think I just now heard you accuse Mrs. Merrett of going mad. It does seem strange that we should all of us be going mad together, and that you should be the only one to continue sane.' He turned his back on us. I saw that for some cause he was afraid of her; that she knew it; and that the knowledge stung her to the heart. 'Douglas, don't you think we'd better prick the bubble?'
'What do you mean?'
'Shall I tell you what I mean?'
'I have no desire to know. Your meaning, lately, is a puzzle to which I have no clue; nor wish for any. I have no taste for the twists and turns of a disordered brain.'
'Douglas! You didn't use to speak to me like that--before.'