“A history of Ashley?” exclaimed Vincent.

“A history of Ashley,” she answered, level-browed.

Mr. Welles had the impression that a “side-wipe” had been exchanged in which he had not shared.

Vincent now asked irrelevantly, “Do you go to church yourself?”

“Oh yes,” she answered, “I go, I like to go.  And I take the children.”  She turned her head so that she looked down at her long hands in her lap, as she added, “I think going to church is a refining influence in children’s lives, don’t you?”

To Mr. Welles’ horror this provoked from Vincent one of his great laughs.  And this time he was sure that Mrs. Crittenden would take offense, for she looked up, distinctly startled, really quite as though he had looked in through the key-hole.  But Vincent went on laughing.  He even said, impudently, “Ah, now I’ve caught you, Mrs. Crittenden; you’re too used to keeping your jokes to yourself.  And they’re much too good for that.”

She looked at him hard, with a certain wonder in her eyes.

“Oh, there’s no necromancy about it,” he told her.  “I’ve been reading the titles of your books and glancing over your music before you came in.  And I can put two and two together.  Who are you making fun of to yourself?  Who first got off that lovely speech about the refining influence of church?”

She laughed a little, half-uneasily, a brighter color mounting to her smooth oval cheeks.  “That’s one of Mrs. Bayweather’s favorite maxims,” she admitted.  She added, “But I really do like to go to church.”

Mr. Welles felt an apprehension about the turn things were taking.  Vincent, he felt sure, was on the verge of being up to something.  And he did not want to risk offending Mrs. Crittenden.  He stood up.  “Thank you very much for telling us about the minister and his wife, Mrs. Crittenden.  I think we’ll go right along down to the village now, and pay a call on them.  There’ll be time enough before dinner.”  Vincent of course got up too, at this, saying, “He’s the most perfect old housekeeper, you know.  He’s kept the neatest flat for himself and that aged aunt of his for seventy years.”

“Seventy!” cried Mr. Welles, scandalized at the exaggeration.

“Oh, more or less,” said Vincent, laughing.  Mr. Welles noticed with no enthusiasm that his eyes were extremely bright, that he smiled almost incessantly, that he stepped with an excess of his usual bounce.  Evidently something had set him off into one of his fits of wild high spirits.  You could almost feel the electricity sparkle from him, as it does from a cat on a cold day.  Personally, Mr. Welles preferred not to touch cats when they were like that.

“When are you going back to the city, Mr. Marsh?” asked Mrs. Crittenden, as they said good-bye at the door.