“He has not spoken to me—for four days!”—brokenly.
“And now he is waiting on the stage of the Novelty for a Miss Betty Chatterton, late of the Folly Theatre, whom formerly he admired——”
“—He used to go about with her a lot, I know!”
“And this gentleman with whom you were walking?”
Lady Dillon looked away.
“Ah,” said O’Hagan sadly, “you have been indiscreet. He was an old admirer?” (nod). “Persistent, unscrupulous?” (nod)—“and you were sending this fellow about his business?”
She looked up to him as, of old, looked Menippus Lycius to Apollonius of Tyana; as to one omniscient—yet, crowning wonder, as to a favourite brother. Such is the timbre of my friend’s exquisite sympathy. Is it not a divine gift?
“How can you possibly know that?”
“My dear Lady Dillon—you have told me! Does your husband know this person?”
“He knows of him. But he has never even asked me his name. I thought he understood that I did not care and never had cared for the man. Oh! why did I see him? Why did I see him? But I feared that, unless I definitely dismissed him, he would compromise me!”