"Yes, aunty darling!"
"Don't turn your toes in and out, and whistle. It's not at all lady-like, and there's Mrs. Theophilus Silverton just behind in the pony-carriage." Joan toned her behaviour down to meet the prejudices of local society. "You do see, don't you, that Dr. Pordage was right?" For this good lady wouldn't glisser, and always appuyait until her accuracy had been entered on the minutes. Her brother-in-law said, "Quite right, aunty!" And she said, "Very well, then!" and seemed to find the fact that she was right almost a set-off against the painful fact she was right about.
For Dr. Sidrophel's shrewd forecast about the Rev. Augustus Fossett meant exile for that invalid; and this exile had already taken form in the proposal that Gus should accept a chaplaincy of an English church in Tunis, which had been offered to him. Athelstan Taylor was keen on his acceptance of the post; as he would have been on the amputation of his own right hand, if he had seen therein any benefit for his friend. But his face went very sad over it as he walked on in silence.
His mind was back in old Eton and Oxford days, when they were all young together—Gus and his sister Adeline, and he, and the mother of those two youngsters in front, who were being so decorous, pending the approach of the pony-chariot behind. And this semi-sister of his own, beside him now, who was always a sort of thorn in the Rector's innermost conscience. For hadn't she—or had she—foregone wedlock and babes of her own for the sake of her sister's and his? The sort of thing no one could ever really know! And what would happen if this confounded Deceased Wife's Sister bill were to become law? That was the cul-de-sac these explorations often led him to, more and more as the chances increased of a majority for the Bill in the House of Peers. But it was a cul-de-sac. Why think about it? Was not each day's evil sufficient for it, and something over?
The pony-carriage gained and gained—overhauled the pedestrians—underwent a period of rapture that it should absolutely see them alive in the flesh—and forged ahead unfeelingly. But it had not expelled from the Rector's mind a something that it had met with in that cul-de-sac—what was it?—oh yes, he knew!
"That's a very sad business, I'm afraid, of poor Challis's."
But Miss Caldecott cannot honour this remark immediately. Deportment calls for attention. "You're not to begin again, the minute they're out of sight, Joan.... What business, dear?"
"I thought you knew about it?"
"No, I know nothing. Only what Lady Arkroyd said."
"Exactly! Well—it's a very painful affair."