Lulu smiled—­a strange smile, originating and dying in one corner of her mouth.

“Yes,” she said.  “So much delicacy that I want to be sure whether I’m married or not.”

Dwight cleared his throat with a movement which seemed to use his shoulders for the purpose.

“I myself will take this up with my brother,” he said.  “I will write to him about it.”

Lulu sprang to her feet.  “Write to him now!” she cried.

“Really,” said Dwight, lifting his brows.

“Now—­now!” Lulu said.  She moved about, collecting writing materials from their casual lodgments on shelf and table.  She set all before him and stood by him.  “Write to him now,” she said again.

“My dear Lulu, don’t be absurd.”

She said:  “Ina.  Help me.  If it was Dwight—­and they didn’t know whether he had another wife, or not, and you wanted to ask him—­oh, don’t you see?  Help me.”

Ina was not yet the woman to cry for justice for its own sake, nor even to stand by another woman.  She was primitive, and her instinct was to look to her own male merely.

“Well,” she said, “of course.  But why not let Dwight do it in his own way?  Wouldn’t that be better?”

She put it to her sister fairly:  Now, no matter what Dwight’s way was, wouldn’t that be better?

“Mother!” said Lulu.  She looked irresolutely toward her mother.  But Mrs. Bett was eating cardamom seeds with exceeding gusto, and Lulu looked away.  Caught by the gesture, Mrs. Bett voiced her grievance.

“Lulie,” she said, “Set down.  Take off your hat, why don’t you?”

Lulu turned upon Dwight a quiet face which he had never seen before.

“You write that letter to Ninian,” she said, “and you make him tell you so you’ll understand. I know he spoke the truth.  But I want you to know.”

“M—­m,” said Dwight.  “And then I suppose you’re going to tell it all over town—­as soon as you have the proofs.”

“I’m going to tell it all over town,” said Lulu, “just as it is—­unless you write to him now.”

“Lulu!” cried Ina.  “Oh, you wouldn’t.”

“I would,” said Lulu.  “I will.”

Dwight was sobered.  This unimagined Lulu looked capable of it.  But then he sneered.

“And get turned out of this house, as you would be?”

“Dwight!” cried his Ina.  “Oh, you wouldn’t!”

“I would,” said Dwight.  “I will.  Lulu knows it.”

“I shall tell what I know and then leave your house anyway,” said Lulu, “unless you get Ninian’s word.  And I want you should write him now.”

“Leave your mother?  And Ina?” he asked.

“Leave everything,” said Lulu.

“Oh, Dwight,” said Ina, “we can’t get along without Lulu.”  She did not say in what particulars, but Dwight knew.

Dwight looked at Lulu, an upward, sidewise look, with a manner of peering out to see if she meant it.  And he saw.