"I think you the most profligate and dissipated family in London and Westminster.... Come nearer the fire? Not if I know it. Both you girls are scorching.... Well now! What was it last night?"
"They went to 'Ibsen.'" Judith summarizes, abruptly. Sibyl says: "And you went to the Megatherium," rather as a counter-accusation than a contribution of fact. The visitor looks quickly from the one to the other. Whatever he notes, he passes it by.
"I've been to 'Ibsen,'" he says, "and know all about it. The people commit suicide. What was the other play?"
"A stupid thing. I really hardly made out what it was about. But the author's a friend of the people I went with. You remember Mr. Challis, Mr. Taylor? I brought him to tea at the Rectory."
"Of course. I thought him such a shy customer. But I met him after that. We had quite a chat."
"Oh yes—I remember he talked about it to me. I'm afraid you found him a great heathen."
"Absolutely." Mr. Taylor laughs cheerfully over Alfred Challis's heathenism. "But a very good Christian for all that. I shouldn't say so to the Bishop, though. He never came to church, and I wasn't sorry...."
"Do take care, Mr. Taylor. We shall tell the Bishop."
"... Not on his account, you know—on my own. He would have convicted me of plagiarism. I took all his ideas for my sermon."
This was incidental chat, leading to nothing. Then followed inquiry, overdue, about the Rector's establishment, especially his locum tenens at Royd, the reporting of whom brought disquiet to his face. His hearers knew he was making the best of it; he was not a good actor. This led naturally to conversation about his own temporary locus tenendus in his friend's behalf, and so to the miserable tragedy of the drunkard's death in the canal-lock. Now it was well over four months since either young lady had done any slumming in the Tallack Street quarter: indeed, their visits there soon lost the charm of novelty, so neither recollected its inhabitants off-hand. The description failed to identify, until Mr. Taylor mentioned the unhappy Uncle Bob by name, first heard by him at the inquest. Then a recollection struck Judith.