"Hm!..."
"I think perhaps not. I don't feel quite like having it publicly discussed. I dislike being cross-examined. However, we might think about that." He said this with the manner of one who adjourns his subject, and then, as though to confirm the adjournment, went back on a previous question—the last one easily to hand. "No—she's an odd character, Judith. You know I shall always say there was something magnificent about it."
"Something detestable," said his wife. A side comment, half sotto voce.
"Well—not lovable, I admit. But fancy the girl saying what she did in the face of all that crowded room full of people—in the face of their indignation, mind you!—for no secret was made of it."
"She ought to have been ashamed of herself. What was it she said to the coroner?"
"When he had stuttered through his remonstrance or reprimand, or whatever he meant it for? Oh, she let him finish, and then said with the most absolute tranquillity—not a ruffle!—'Possibly. But I should do the same thing, under the same circumstances, I have no doubt, another time.' The poor coroner hadn't a chance. It was just like a respectable greengrocer trying to reprove Zenobia or Cleopatra."
"I shouldn't have thought so."
"I suppose that means that I'm a man?"
"That was the idea."