“Must I tell?” she demanded, dropping her eyes.
“I am sorry, madam, it is absolutely necessary, since the whole case seems to hang upon that injury, or those injuries alone.”
“Well, then,” said Sophia, riveting her maidenly orbs meekly upon a broken coal-scuttle; “well, then, sir, he kissed her in the dark!”
“Is that all?”
“Is it not enough, sir?”
“It might have been enough,” replied Mr. Beanson, in the stumbling innocence which had been the bane of his life; “it might have been enough, madam, for the defendant, or for the plaintiff even, but it is hardly enough to ground an action of breach of promise upon.”
Miss Garr was angry; Mr. Beanson puzzled; and both were silent. If he had seen a possible chance of securing his first brief in any other way, Mr. Archibald Beanson would most certainly have dismissed Sophia instanter.
Running his long fingers inanely through his red hair, “Madam!” he said at last, “I think I shall be obliged to consult Bishop on Marriage.”
“Now look here, sir,” observed Miss Sophia, wrapping her ready-made cloak tighter around her, “if you keep on, I shall lose my patience and my good manners. Who in the world wants to consult the bishop on marriage? An ordinary minister, or even a justice of the peace, will do me. I am not proud, sir.”
Mr. Beanson, trying to look learned, succeeded in looking confused. Undoubling himself again—this time with abstruse deliberation—he went to a meagre bookcase, and returned to his desk. “It was this book,” said he, “that I had reference to—‘Bishop on Marriage and Divorce!’”