“—­And I’ve come on a most unconventional errand.”

“Do you mean an unpleasant one?”

“I’m afraid I do, rather.  And it’s just as unpleasant for me as it is for you.  Have you any idea, Mrs. Majendie, why I’ve been obliged to come?  It’ll make it easier for me if you have.”

“I assure you I have none.  I cannot conceive why you have come, nor how I can make anything easier for you.”

“I think I mean it would have made it easier for you.”

“For me?”

“Well—­it would have spared you some painful explanations.”  Sarah felt herself sincere.  She really desired to spare Mrs. Majendie.  The part which she had rehearsed with such ease in her own bedroom was impossible in Mrs. Majendie’s drawing-room.  She was charmed by the spirit of the place, constrained by its suggestion of fair observances, high decencies, and social suavities.  She could not sit there and tell Mrs. Majendie that her husband had been unfaithful to her.  You do not say these things.  And so subdued was Sarah that she found a certain relief in the reflection that, by clearing herself, she would clear Majendie.

“I don’t in the least know what you want to say to me,” said Mrs. Majendie.  “But I would rather take everything for granted than have any explanations.”

“If I thought you would take my innocence for granted—­”

“Your innocence?  I should be a bad judge of it, Lady Cayley.”

“Quite so.”  Lady Cayley smiled again, and again inimitably. (It was extraordinary, the things she took for granted.) “That’s why I’ve come to explain.”

“One moment.  Perhaps I am mistaken.  But, if you are referring to—­to what happened in the past, there need be no explanation.  I have put all that out of my mind now.  I have heard that you, too, have left it far behind you; and I am willing to believe it.  There is nothing more to be said.”

There was such a sweetness and dignity in Mrs. Majendie’s voice and manner that Lady Cayley was further moved to compete in dignity and sweetness.  She suppressed the smile that ignored so much and took so much for granted.

“Unfortunately a great deal more has been said.  Your husband is an intimate friend of my sister, Mrs. Ransome, as of course you know.”

Mrs. Majendie’s face denied all knowledge of the intimacy.

“I might have met him at her house a hundred times, but, I assure you, Mrs. Majendie, that, since his marriage, I have not met him more than twice, anywhere.  The first time was at the Hannays’.  You were there.  You saw all that passed between us.”

“Well?”

“The second time was at the Hannays’, too.  Mrs. Hannay was with us all the time.  What do you suppose he talked to me about?  His child.  He talked about nothing else.”

“I suppose,” said Mrs. Majendie coldly, “there was nothing else to talk about.”

“No—­but it was so dear and naif of him.”  She pondered on his naivete with down-dropped eyes whose lids sheltered the irresponsibly hilarious blue.