Stanton paused for a moment, as if trying to recall something that might serve as a test.
“I ’ave it!” he said, looking up with a look of triumph. “Open your mouth, ma’am, and let me look into it!”
He advanced towards her, expecting instant compliance. But Miss Honey rushed behind her father with a cry of terror and disgust. The movement was perfectly natural under the circumstances, but Stanton saw it in the light of his own suspicions.
“Ha! I guessed as much,” he said, drawing away, and speaking in a quiet tone of regret. “I was sure of it. Well, you give me no choice. I know my dooty to a lady, but I know my dooty to my master too.” He went toward the window, intending to throw it up and call for a policeman.
“Stop!” cried Mr. Honey. “What do you expect to find in my daughter’s mouth?”
“That, sir, is known to her and to me,” was the oracular reply. “If she has nothing in it as can convict her, she needn’t be afraid to let me look into it.”
Mr. Honey turned aside, touched his forehead with his forefinger, and pointed with the thumb toward Stanton. After this rapid and significant little pantomime, he said aloud to his daughter:
“My dear, perhaps it is as well to let the man have his way. He will see that there is nothing to see. Come and gratify his singular curiosity.”
The girl was now too frightened to see the ludicrous side of the performance; she advanced gravely to the table, on which a gas-burner threw a strong, clear light, and opened her mouth. Stanton came and peered into it. “Please to lift the left side as wide open as you can, ma’am; it was the third tooth from the back of her left jaw.”
She did as he desired, but, after looking closely all round, he could see nothing but two fine, pearly rows of teeth, all ivory, without the smallest glimmer of gold or silver to attest the presence of even an unsound one.