MRS. BALLANTYNE (_aside to Mrs. Akers_): I don’t agree. I’m the mother of a girl myself, as you know, and to me girlhood is _sacred_. We have a most painful subject to discuss. MISS MILLER: Please let me stay. I--I might help. MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: How could _you_ help, Miss Miller? And even if you could, it would be most unsuitable in an unmarried girl like yourself. Please wait in the next room until we call you to take down the results of the conference. (_Exit Miss Miller, and shuts the door._) MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: I don’t know that I altogether like that girl. Rather horrid of her to be so curious, wasn’t it? MRS. BALLANTYNE: Any young woman with a _nice_ mind would have been only too thankful to be spared the embarrassment of staying in the room while such a thing was being discussed. (_Her tone changes to eagerness._) Well, this is too dreadful! Which of the girls is it? MRS. AKERS: I’m certain it’s one of those twins! They really are pretty--you know what I mean, pretty _for_ that class. Which of them is it? MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: It’s nothing to do with the twins. (Though I daresay it’ll be them next--one never knows, when once this sort of thing begins.) No, it’s the girl from London, the daughter of that widowed Mrs. Smith who has been taking in washing in West Street. MRS. AKERS: Fanny! MRS. BALLANTYNE: That child! But she can’t be more than sixteen. MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: Fifteen. But one knows what London girls are, at any age. MRS. AKERS: How did you find out? Is it absolutely certain? MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: Absolutely. It ought to have been found out months ago, if the girl hadn’t been so artful. Even her mother says she had no idea, till just the other day. MRS. AKERS (_decidedly_): That’s impossible. MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: She pitched a long yarn about the girl herself not having known what was happening. They pretend it came to light by accident, through something Fanny said to her mother, which made her suspicious. MRS. AKERS (_eagerly_): What was that? If we’re to help at all, we’d better know everything. (_Mrs. Lloyd-Evans whispers to her, and Mrs. Akers whispers in her turn to Mrs. Ballantyne._) MRS. BALLANTYNE: And when do they expect---- MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: In three months’ time, actually. (_The members of the Committee, in silence, make rapid movements upon their fingers, in evident calculation._) MRS. AKERS: Then it must have happened after they got down here, that’s clear. MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: I think it’s much more likely it was in London. There’d just be time. Londoners are always immoral. Besides, as I said to her, _in our town these things don’t happen_. MRS. BALLANTYNE: How did they take it?