“Call on him by all means.  I’ll go with you.  We ought, in common civility, to enquire for Damaris after this illness of hers.  But don’t explain or attempt to enlarge on the case from your own point of view.  Sir Charles will consider it an impertinence.  It won’t advantage Miss Bilson and will embroil you with the most important of your parishioners.  The wisdom of the serpent is permitted, on occasion even recommended.”

“A most dangerous doctrine, Jane, most dangerous, save under authority.”

“What authority can be superior to that under which the recommendation was originally given?”

“My love, you become slightly profane.—­I implore you don’t argue—­and at this hour!  When a woman touches on exegesis, on theology “—­

“All I know upon those subjects you, dear, have taught me.”

“Ah! well—­ah! well”—­the good man returned, at once mollified and suspicious.  For might not the compliment be regarded as something of a back-hander?  “We can defer our decision till to-morrow.  Perhaps we had better, as you propose, call together.  I need not go straight to the point, but watch my opportunity and slip in a word edgeways.”

He audibly yawned—­the hint, like the yawn, a broad one.  The lady did not take it, however.  So far she had held her own; more—­had nicely secured her ends.  But further communications trembled upon her tongue.  The word is just—­literally trembled, for they might cause anger, and James’ anger—­it happened rarely—­she held in quite, to herself, uncomfortable respect.

“I fear there is a good deal of objectionable gossip going about the village just now,” she tentatively commenced.

“Then pray don’t repeat it to me, my love”—­another yawn and an irritable one.  “Gossip as you know is abhorrent to me.”

“And to me—­but one needs to be forearmed with the truth if one is to rebut it conclusively.  Only upon such grounds should I think of mentioning this to you.”

She made a dash.

“James, have you by chance ever heard peculiar rumours about young Darcy Faircloth’s parentage?”

“In mercy, Jane—­what a question!—­and from you!  I am inexpressibly shocked.”

“So was I, when—­I won’t mention names—­when such rumours were hinted to me.  I assured the person with whom I was talking that I had never heard a word on the subject.  But she said, ‘One can’t help having eyes.’”

“Or, some of you, noses for carrion.”

Here he gave her the advantage.  She was not slow to make play with it.

“Now it is my turn to be shocked,” she said—­“and not, I think, James, without good cause.”

“Yes, I apologize,” the excellent man answered immediately.  “I apologize; but to have so foul a suggestion of parochial scandal let loose on me suddenly, flung in my teeth, as I may say—­and by you!  I was taken off my guard and expressed myself coarsely.  Yes, Jane, I apologize.”