"On the contrary, you're Jeremiah. But if you were he ever so, I'm puzzled why Mr. Fenwick now can't remember Mr. Fenwick then."
"He can't, Sarah dear. He can no more remember Mr. Fenwick then than if no such person had ever existed." It was a clever equivocation, for though he had so far made nothing of the name on his arm, he was quite clear he came back to England Harrisson. His gravity and sadness as he said it may have been not so much duplicity as a reflection from his turgid current of thought of the last two days. It imposed on Sally, who decided in her own mind on changing the topic as soon as she
could do it without a jerk. Meanwhile, a stepping-stone was available—extravagant treatment of the subject with a view to help from laughter.
"I wonder what Mr. Fenwick then would have thought if I had kissed him in the railway-carriage."
"He'd have thought you must be Sally, only he hadn't noticed it. He wouldn't have made a rumpus on high moral grounds, I'm sure. But I don't know about the old cock that talked about the terms of the Company's charter...."
"Hullo!" Sally interrupts him blankly. He had better have let it alone. But it wouldn't do to admit anything.
"What's 'hullo,' Sarah?"
"See how you're recollecting things! Jeremiah's recollecting the railway-carriage, mother—the electrocution-carriage."
"Are you, darling?" Rosalind, coming behind his chair, puts her hands round his neck. "What have you recollected?"
"I don't think I've recollected anything the kitten hasn't told me," says Fenwick dreamily. But Sally is positive she never told him anything about the terms of the Company's charter.