“Of what other great men can you equally say it? I mean that he has never, but never, had a deviation?” Mrs. Mulville exultantly demanded.
I tried to think of some other great man, but I had to give it up. “Didn't Miss Anvoy express her satisfaction in any less diffident way than by her charming present?” I was reduced to inquiring instead.
“Oh yes, she overflowed to me on the steps while he was getting into the carriage.” These words somehow brushed up a picture of Saltram's big shawled back as he hoisted himself into the green landau. “She said she was not disappointed,” Adelaide pursued.
I meditated a moment. “Did he wear his shawl?”
“His shawl?” She had not even noticed.
“I mean yours.”
“He looked very nice, and you know he's always clean. Miss Anvoy used such a remarkable expression—she said his mind is like a crystal!”
I pricked up my ears. “A crystal?”
“Suspended in the moral world—swinging and shining and flashing there. She's monstrously clever, you know.”
I reflected again. “Monstrously!”