"Of course. But she hasn't spoken of him to me for a month—quite a month." This was her ladyship.
"I told you it would be no use, madre," says Sibyl. "But you wouldn't listen to me."
"My dear—how unreasonable you are! How was it possible for your father and me to allow it to go on? You may say what you like, but he is a married man...."
"All I say is, you made matters worse."
"Never mind that now!" said the Baronet. "What I want to hear is—how did Sib know this was going on?"
Sibyl is quite clear on that point. "Judith met him in the Park the day before we came, last month. Old Mrs. Inskip saw them together, behaving like a couple of—like lovers." Her tone is one of reprobation and disgust. She goes on to tell how she had interviewed the centenarian on the subject, and been fully enlightened.
"That is all at an end now, anyhow." So says the Baronet, but when his wife says "Why?" he does not answer, but goes on as to another point reflectively. "Judith must have met him on her way to Thanes.... Where did he join her—this morning, I mean?"
Both ladies strike a new clue. "Was she going to Thanes at all?" And Sibyl adds: "I don't believe she was."
"You said you knew she was, Therèse," says Sir Murgatroyd, addressing his wife by her name—a thing that always means, with him, a definite attitude of some sort. She is on her mettle directly, for expostulation or defence.
"My dear, I never said anything of the sort. She talked yesterday of going to-day, and, of course, I supposed she had. That little girl of hers only said she said she might not be back to lunch." Her ladyship exonerates herself at some length, denying what she had said plainly an hour before at breakfast.