"Are women tiring when they have passed a good deal of time in India?"
"My dear Conrad, is it likely I should talk such nonsense? You know perfectly well what I mean." But the doctor merely awaited
natural development, which came. "Mind, I do not say I believe Mrs. Julius Bradshaw's story. But it would quite account for it—fully!"
What would account for what? Heaven only knew! However, the speaker was getting the bit in her teeth, and earth would know very soon. Dr. Conrad was conscious at this moment of the sensation which had once made Sally speak of his mamma as an Octopus. She threw out a tentacle.
"And, of course, Mrs. Julius Bradshaw's story may be nothing but idle talk. I am the last person to give credit to mere irresponsible gossip. Let us hope it is ill founded."
Whereupon her son, who knew another tentacle would come and entangle him if he slipped clear from this one, surrendered at discretion. What was Mrs. Julius Bradshaw's story? A most uncandid way of putting it, for the fact was he had heard it all from Sally in the strictest confidence. So the insincerity was compulsory, in a sense.
The Octopus, who was by this time anchored in her knitting-chair and awaiting her mixture—two tablespoonfuls after every meal—closed her eyes to pursue the subject, but warmed to the chace visibly.
"Are you going to tell me, my dear Conrad, that you do not know that it has been said—I vouch for nothing, remember—that Miss Nightingale's mother was divorced from her father twenty years ago in India?"
"I don't think it's any concern of yours or mine." But having said this, he would have liked to recall it and substitute something else. It was brusque, and he was not sure that it was a fair way of stating the case, especially as this matter had been freely discussed between them in the days of their first acquaintance with Sally and her mother. Dr. Conrad felt mean for renegading from his apparent admission at that time that the divorce was an affair they might properly speculate about. Mrs. Vereker knew well that her son would be hard on himself for the slightest unfairness, and forthwith climbed up to a pinnacle of flawless rectitude, for his confusion.
"My dear, it is absolutely none. Am I saying that it is? People's past lives are no affair of ours. Am I saying that they are?"