Once more I couldn't but smile. "Just in time then! And the _way_ he
knows----?"
"Oh, the way!"--she had at this a slight drop. But she came up again. "I
take his word."
"You haven't then asked him?"
"The beauty of it was--half an hour ago, upstairs--that I _hadn't_ to
ask. He came out with it himself, and _that_--to give you the whole
thing--was, if you like, my moment. He dropped it on me," she continued
to explain, "without in the least, sweet innocent, knowing what he was
doing; more, at least, that is, than give her away."
"Which," I concurred, "was comparatively nothing!"
But she had no ear for irony, and she made out still more of her story.
"He's simple--but he sees."
"And when he sees"--I completed the picture--"he luckily tells."
She quite agreed with me that it was lucky, but without prejudice to his
acuteness and to what had been in him moreover a natural revulsion. "He
has seen, in short; there comes some chance when one does. His, as
luckily as you please, came this evening. If you ask me what it showed
him you ask more than _I've_ either cared or had time to ask. Do you
consider, for that matter"--she put it to me--"that one does ask?" As
her high smoothness--such was the wonder of this reascendancy--almost
deprived me of my means, she was wise and gentle with me. "Let us leave
it alone."
I fairly, while my look at her turned rueful, scratched my head. "Don't
you think it a little late for that?"
"Late for everything!" she impatiently said. "But there you are."
I fixed the floor. There indeed I was. But I tried to stay there--just
there only--as short a time as possible. Something, moreover, after all,
caught me up. "But if Brissenden already knew----?"
"If he knew----?" She still gave me, without prejudice to her
ingenuity--and indeed it was a part of this--all the work she could.
"Why, that Long and Lady John were thick?"
"Ah, then," she cried, "you admit they _are_!"
"Am I not admitting everything you tell me? But the more I admit," I
explained, "the more I must understand. It's _to_ admit, you see, that I
inquire. If Briss came down with Lady John yesterday to oblige Mr.
Long----"
"He didn't come," she interrupted, "to oblige Mr. Long!"
"Well, then, to oblige Lady John herself----"
"He didn't come to oblige Lady John herself!"
"Well, then, to oblige his clever wife----"
"He didn't come to oblige his clever wife! He came," said Mrs. Briss,
"just to amuse himself. He _has_ his amusements, and it's odd," she
remarkably laughed, "that you should grudge them to him!"
"It would be odd indeed if I did! But put his proceeding," I continued,
"on any ground you like; you described to me the purpose of it as a
screening of the pair."
"I described to you the purpose of it as nothing of the sort. I didn't
describe to you the purpose of it," said Mrs. Briss, "at all. I
described to you," she triumphantly set forth, "the _effect_ of
it--which is a very different thing."