“He talked about his child—­your child—­to me.  I hadn’t seen him for two years, and that’s all he could talk about. I had to sit and listen to that.”

“It wouldn’t hurt you, Lady Cayley.”

“It didn’t—­and I’m sure the little girl is charming—­only—­it was so delicious of your husband, don’t you see?”

Her face curled all over with its soft and sensual smile.

“If we’d been two babes unborn there couldn’t have been a more innocent conversation.”

“Well?”

“Well, since that night we haven’t seen each other for more than five years.  Ask him if it isn’t true.  Ask Mrs. Hannay—­”

“Lady Cayley, I do not doubt your word—­nor my husband’s honour.  I can’t think why you’re giving yourself all this trouble.”

“Why, because they’re saying now—­”

Mrs. Majendie rose.  “Excuse me, if you’ve only come to tell me what people are saying, it is useless.  I never listen to what people say.”

“It isn’t likely they’d say it to you.”

“Then why should you say it to me?”

“Because it concerns my reputation.”

“Forgive me, but—­your reputation does not concern me.”

“And how about your husband’s reputation, Mrs. Majendie?”

“My husband’s reputation can take care of itself.”

“Not in Scale.”

“There’s no more scandal talked in Scale than in any other place.  I never pay any attention to it.”

“That’s all very well—­but you must defend yourself sometimes.  And when it comes to saying that I’ve been living with Mr. Majendie in Scarby for the last three years—­”

Mrs. Majendie was so calm that Lady Cayley fancied that, after all, this was not the first time she had heard that rumour.

“Let them say it,” said she.  “Nobody’ll believe it.”

“Everybody believes it.  I came to you because I was afraid you’d be the first.”

“To believe it?  I assure you, Lady Cayley, I should be the last.”

“What was to prevent you?  You didn’t know me.”

“No.  But I know my husband.”

“So do I.”

“Not now” said Mrs. Majendie quietly.

Lady Cayley’s bosom heaved.  She had felt that she had risen to the occasion.  She had achieved a really magnificent renunciation.  With almost suicidal generosity, she had handed Majendie over intact, as it were, to his insufferable wife.  She was wounded in several very sensitive places by the married woman’s imperious denial of her part in him, by her attitude of indestructible and unique possession.  If she didn’t know him she would like to know who did.  But up till now she had meant to spare Mrs. Majendie her knowledge of him, for she was not ill-natured.  She was sorry for the poor, inept, unhappy prude.

Even now, seated in Mrs. Majendie’s drawing-room, she had no impulse to wound her mortally.  Her instinct was rather to patronise and pity, to unfold the long result of a superior experience, to instruct this woman who was so incompetent to deal with men, who had spoiled, stupidly, her husband’s life and her own.  In that moment Sarah contemplated nothing more outrageous than a little straight talk with Mrs. Majendie.