"No: one hardly meets him from one week's end to another. He is unusually late this morning."
"He looks a very quiet, steady—Really, one might take him for rather a nice old man."
Percival stared blankly at her, and then began to laugh: "Well, Miss Lisle, I never heard a reputation blighted so completely by a complimentary sentence before."
Judith blushed a little: "But he isn't very nice, is he?"
"I don't know about nice. I should say he was as steady and harmless an old fellow as ever lived. What do you mean?"
"Well," Judith hesitated, "of course one has no business to judge any one without really knowing; but his staying out so late at night—"
"'So late at night?'" Percival repeated.
"I suppose he has a latch-key generally. But one or two nights I am sure Miss Bryant sat up to let him in. I heard them whispering: at least, I heard her. I don't think that girl could even whisper quietly."
"But there must be some mistake. Fordham comes in quite early, and very often he doesn't go out at all in the evening."
"He goes out later," said Judith.