“Well,” sighed the minister, “you have not been rash, perhaps, but you'll allow that you've been rapid.”
“No,” said Miss Vane, “I won't allow that. I have simply been intuitive—nothing more. His functions are not decided yet, but it is decided that he is to stay; he's to sleep in the little room over the L, and in my tranquillised consciousness he's been there years already.”
“And has Sibyl undertaken Barker's reformation?” asked Sewell.
“Don't interrupt! Don't anticipate! I admit nothing till I come to it. But after I had arranged with Lemuel I began to think of Sibyl.”
“That was like some ladies I have known of,” said Sewell. “You women commit yourselves to a scheme, in order to show your skill in reconciling circumstances to the irretrievable. Well?”
“Don't interrupt, David!” cried his wife.
“Oh, let him go on,” said Miss Vane. “It's all very well, taking people into your house on the spur of the moment, and in obedience to a generous impulse, but when you reflect that the object of your good intentions slept in the Wayfarer's Lodge the night before, and in the police-station the night before that, and enjoys a newspaper celebrity in connection with a case of assault and battery with intent to rob,—why, then you do reflect!”
“Yes,” said Sewell, “that is just the point where I should begin.”
“I thought,” continued Miss Vane, “I had better tell Sibyl all about it, so if by any chance the neighbours' kitchens should have heard of the case—they read the police reports very carefully in the kitchens——”
“They do in some drawing-rooms,” interrupted Sewell.