“My dear girl,” said I, “if you had got mixed up in a railway collision, I shouldn’t ask you how you managed to do it.  I should be sorry for you and feel your arms and legs and inquire whether you had sustained any internal injuries.”

She is a pretty, spare woman with a bird-like face and soft brown hair just turning grey; and as good-hearted a little creature as ever adored five healthy children and an elderly baronet with disastrous views on scientific farming.

“Dear old boy,” she said in milder accents, “I didn’t mean to be unkind.  I want to be good to you and help you, so much so that I asked Bingley”—­Bingley is my housekeeper—­“whether I could stay to dinner.”

“That’s good of you—­but this magnificence——?”

“I’m going on later to the Foreign Office reception.”

“Then you do still mingle with the great and gorgeous?” I said.

“What do you mean?  Why shouldn’t I?”

I laughed, suspecting rightly that my sisters’ social position had not been greatly imperilled by the profligacy of their scandal-bespattered brother.

“What are people saying about me?” I asked suddenly.

She made a helpless gesture.  “Can’t you guess?  You have told us the facts, and, of course, we believe you; we have done our best to spread abroad the correct version—­but you know what people are.  If they’re told they oughtn’t to believe the worst, they’re disappointed and still go on believing it so as to comfort themselves.”

“You cynical little wretch!” said I.

“But it’s true,” she urged.  “And, after all, even if they were well disposed, the correct version makes considerable demands on their faith.  Even Letty Farfax—­”

“I know!  I know!” said I.  “Letty Farfax is typical.  She would love to be on the side of the angels, but as she wouldn’t meet the best people there, she ranges herself with the other party.”

Presently we dined, and during the meal, when the servants happened to be out of the room, we continued, snippet-wise, the inconclusive conversation.  Like a good sister Agatha had come to cheer a lonely and much abused man; like a daughter of Eve she had also come to find out as much as she possibly could.

“I think I must tell you something which you ought to know,” she said.  “It’s all over the town that you stole the lady from Dale Kynnersley.”

“If I did,” said I, “it was at his mother’s earnest entreaty.  You can tell folks that.  You can also tell them Madame Brandt is not the kind of woman to be stolen by one man from another.  She is a thoroughly virtuous, good, and noble woman, and there’s not a creature living who wouldn’t be honoured by her friendship.”

As I made this announcement with an impetuosity which reminded me (with a twinge of remorse) of poor Dale’s dithyrambics, Agatha shot at me a quick glance of apprehension.

“But, my dear Simon, she used to act in a circus with a horse!”