“The world takes us, Mr. Mince,” Gabriel had answered him, “for what we seem and not for what we are.”
“But, Mr. Strong, is not the diagnosis often one of extreme complexity?”
“Not so complex, sir, to those who prefer to discover the evil rather than the good.”
Meanwhile John Strong had other strategies in view. He had ransacked his escritoire, where in the many pigeon-holes letters lay carefully hoarded. Methodical man that he was, he had sorted the documents through, reserved such as seemed needful, and enclosed them, with the anonymous letter Maltravers had surrendered to him, to a certain expert who dealt in the subtleties of caligraphy. John Strong had found that the hand-writing of the anonymous letter tallied with that of a certain epistle written to him by Mrs. Marjoy for her husband, concerning one of the Hall servants whom the doctor had attended. But the master of Saltire waited for an unbiassed opinion. He would make sure of his weapons before he attacked the redoubtable dragon of Saltire.
Thus, one afternoon, late in June, Mrs. Marjoy was darning stockings in her drawing-room when she received the news that John Strong of Saltire stood as a suppliant upon her threshold. Mrs. Marjoy sniffed at the necessity. She edged her work-basket under the sofa with her foot and deigned to receive the master of Saltire Hall. Doubtless these vulgar plutocrats desired to court the serene approval of her seraphic countenance.
She received John Strong with the air of a woman whose extravagant sense of “respectability” made her a fit compeer of the gods. Moreover, Mrs. Marjoy confounded staring and red-faced hauteur with stately aloofness and a distinguished air of reserve. She always glared at strangers through her spectacles as though she would demand many and abundant proofs of their gentility before she could deign to relax her vigilance. Mrs. Marjoy delighted in what she was pleased to call “a select circle,” acquaintances who were aristocratic enough to be toadied to, or friends familiar enough to deserve patronage.
Without rising from her chair, she extended a bony hand towards John Strong. It had always been her constant complaint that the Hall folk were “so detestably healthy.”
“Good-afternoon, Mr. Strong,” she observed; “I am afraid my husband is out.”
“So much the better, madam,” said the ex-tea-merchant. “I have driven round to have a short talk with you.”
Mrs. Marjoy stared. There was an expression upon John Strong’s face that she did not understand. Moreover, his confident and masterful air irritated her perpetual propensities towards tyranny. Mrs. Marjoy always regarded the spirit of independence in others as insufferable arrogance.