Lady Annabel bent her head. I knew, however, and she meant me to know, that this was mere courtesy on her part--not acquiescence. She was not the only person to talk about Mrs. Harter and Captain Patch, of course. It is never only one person who talks; these things get into the air, no one knows how. Mrs. Kendal spoke to Claire, and Claire reported what she had said to me. “I have seen them myself, walking about the town,” said Mumma impressively. “They actually went into the butcher’s together. Of course, I suppose she does her own marketing, living in rooms. And I distinctly saw them go into the butcher’s together.” Claire said that it seemed an unromantic sort of trysting place. “It shows how intimate they are, their going like that to the butcher’s together. None of my girls would ever dream of taking a gentleman to do their household shopping,” said Mrs. Kendal with absolute truth. “I should think less of it, in a way, if Captain Patch and Mrs. Harter went to the theater, or even to the cinematograph, together. But when it comes to their going together to the butcher’s, I ask myself what it all means.” Mrs. Kendal had not been content only to ask herself what it all meant. She had asked several other people as well, including her four daughters and her son. “It means,” said Dolly, with her most uncompromisingly sensible expression, “that Mrs. Harter is trying to get up a flirtation with Captain Patch.” “She’s old enough to be his mother, I should think,” said Aileen. When the twins had made these scathing statements, I think they felt that the situation had been exhaustively analyzed. At any rate, although they thereafter talked round and round the subject with tireless persistency, the sum total of their observations never amounted to more than that Mrs. Harter was trying to get up a flirtation with Captain Patch and that she was old enough to be his mother. I did not think it worth while to point out that twenty-eight cannot be the mother of twenty-six. It was odd, and to me profoundly interesting, to compare the comments which the situation evoked. Mary Ambrey, of course, made none, and was, I should imagine, almost the only person in Cross Loman of whom that could be said. Sallie and Martyn, with their strange, passionless habits of dissection, were coldly and impersonally interested. I remember one exposition of their views. The spirit of it impressed itself upon my consciousness so clearly that I can almost remember the letter. “There’ll be a scandal over Patch and the fascinating Mrs. Harter one of these days,” said Martyn. “She’s not fascinating,” Sallie asserted. Her brother raised his eyebrows slightly, and she understood and laughed. “Flat contradiction is rather uncivilized, I admit. And besides, she probably _is_ fascinating, to some people.” “She certainly is to Bill Patch.” “I know. As a matter of fact, there’s more to it than that, I believe. I mean, he’s more than just attracted by her.”