Her age struck Patrick as being about twenty-three.

‘Could my nephew Arthur be of any use to you?’ said Mrs. Adister.

‘Colonel Adister?’ Miss Mattock shook her head.  ‘No.’

‘Arthur can be very energetic when he takes up a thing.’  ’Can he?  But, Mrs. Adister, you are looking a little troubled.  Sometimes you confide in me.  You are so good to us with your subscriptions that I always feel in your debt.’

Patrick glanced at his hostess for a signal to rise and depart.

She gave none, but at once unfolded her perplexity, and requested Miss Mattock to peruse the composition of Mr. Patrick O’Donnell and deliver an opinion upon it.

The young lady took the letter without noticing its author.  She read it through, handed it back, and sat with her opinion evidently formed within.

‘What do you think of it?’ she was asked.

‘Rank jesuitry,’ she replied.

‘I feared so!’ sighed Mrs. Adister.  ’Yet it says everything I wish to have said.  It spares my brother and it does not belie me.  The effect of a letter is often most important.  I cannot but consider this letter very ingenious.  But the moment I hear it is jesuitical I forswear it.  But then my dilemma remains.  I cannot consent to give pain to my brother Edward:  nor will I speak an untruth, though it be to save him from a wound.  I am indeed troubled.  Mr. Patrick, I cannot consent to despatch a jesuitical letter.  You are sure of your impression, my dear Jane?’

‘Perfectly,’ said Miss Mattock.

Patrick leaned to her.  ’But if the idea in the mind of the person supposed to be writing the letter is accurately expressed?  Does it matter, if we call it jesuitical, if the emotion at work behind it happens to be a trifle so, according to your definition?’

She rejoined:  ‘I should say, distinctly it matters.’

‘Then you’d not express the emotions at all?’

He flashed a comical look of astonishment as he spoke.  She was not to be diverted; she settled into antagonism.

‘I should write what I felt.’

‘But it might be like discharging a bullet.’

‘How?’

‘If your writing in that way wounded the receiver.’

‘Of course I should endeavour not to wound!’

’And there the bit of jesuitry begins.  And it’s innocent while it ’s no worse than an effort to do a disagreeable thing as delicately as you can.’

She shrugged as delicately as she could: 

‘We cannot possibly please everybody in life.’

‘No:  only we may spare them a shock:  mayn’t we?’

‘Sophistries of any description, I detest.’

‘But sometimes you smile to please, don’t you?’

‘Do you detect falseness in that?’ she answered, after the demurest of pauses.

‘No:  but isn’t there a soupcon of sophistry in it?’

‘I should say that it comes under the title of common civility.’