My eyes had been meeting hers without, as it were, hers quite meeting mine.But at this there had to be intercourse."By my husband."It pulled ME up a trifle."Brissenden knows?"She hesitated; then, as if at my tone, gave a laugh."Don't you suppose I've told him?"I really couldn't but admire her."Ah--so you HAVE talked!"It didn't confound her."One's husband isn't talk.You're cruel moreover,"she continued, "to my joke.It was Briss, poor dear, who talked--though, I mean, only to me.HE knows."I cast about."Since when?"
But she had it ready."Since this evening."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 ******--but he sees."
1
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," Iexplained, "the more I must understand.It's TO admit, you see, that Iinquire.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."I could only meet her with admiration."You're of an astuteness--!""Of course I'm of an astuteness! I SEE effects.And I saw that one.
How much Briss himself had seen it is, as I've told you, another matter;and what he had, at any rate, quite taken the affair for was the sort of flirtation in which, if one is a friend to either party, and one's own feelings are not at stake, one may now and then give people a lift.Haven't I asked you before," she demanded, "if you suppose he would have given one had he had an idea where these people ARE?""I scarce know what you have asked me before!" I sighed; "and 'where they are' is just what you haven't told me.""It's where my husband was so annoyed unmistakably to discover them."And as if she had quite fixed the point she passed to another."He's peculiar, dear old Briss, but in a way by which, if one uses him--by which, I mean, if one depends on him--at all, one gains, I think, more than one loses.