But Marianne was not to be turned from her purpose by the Rev. Iairus Pitt, whose parents had not baptized him considerately. "Is it all settled about her going on the stage?... handsome Judith?"
So strangely had last night's image of Judith—or, rather, her identity—cancelled her previous one of the stage aspirant, that Challis all but exclaimed, "Oh, of course!—she was going on the stage. Actually I had forgotten that!" For he had forgotten it—Estrild and all!—in the outbreak of fever in which he had so completely forgotten himself and his position and his duties. But he kept to himself what would have been unintelligible to Marianne; not without a feeling of relief that her question had reminded him of an aspect in which Judith could be easily discussed by both, without any arrière pensée.
"Handsome Judith," said he seriously and equably as he resumed his seat, "has given up all idea of going on the stage. That's at an end."
"Oh!" A short and thick exclamation, very conclusive.
"I shall have to find someone else to play Estrild if I finish the play...."
Mrs. Challis was considering. "She's going to be married, of course," she said.
"H'm!—I've no reason to suppose she is."
"You said her sister was?"
"I said something about Sibyl and Lord F. Yes!—but they're not twins, you know, she and Judith!"
"I know that. Really, Tite, I'm not the goose you always try to make me out! Besides, twins don't, invariably: sometimes one dies of a broken heart."