Mrs. Brook floated over. “There would be in that case perhaps something to hint to her not to shriek on the house-tops. When you say,” she continued, “that one admits, as regards Fanny, anything wrong, you pervert dreadfully what one does freely grant--that she’s a great glorious pagan. It’s a real relief to know such a type--it’s like a flash of insight into history. None the less if you ask me why then it isn’t all right for young things to ‘shriek’ as I say, I have my answer perfectly ready.” After which, as her visitor seemed not only too reduced to doubt it, but too baffled to distinguish audibly, for his credit, between resignation and admiration, she produced: “Because she’s purely instinctive. Her instincts are splendid--but it’s terrific.” “That’s all I ever maintained it to be!” Mr. Cashmore cried. “It IS terrific.” “Well,” his friend answered, “I’m watching her. We’re all watching her. It’s like some great natural poetic thing--an Alpine sunrise or a big high tide.” “You’re amazing!” Mr. Cashmore laughed. “I’m watching her too.” “And I’m also watching YOU!” Mrs. Brook lucidly continued. “What I don’t for a moment believe is that her bills are paid by any one. It’s MUCH more probable,” she sagaciously observed, “that they’re not paid at all.” “Oh well, if she can get on that way--!” “There can’t be a place in London,” Mrs. Brook pursued, “where they’re not delighted to dress such a woman. She shows things, don’t you see? as some fine tourist region shows the placards in the fields and the posters on the rocks. And what proof can you adduce?” she asked. Mr. Cashmore had grown restless; he picked a stray thread off the knee of his trousers. “Ah when you talk about ‘adducing’--!” He appeared to intimate--as with the hint that if she didn’t take care she might bore him--that it was the kind of word he used only in the House of Commons. “When I talk about it you can’t meet me,” she placidly returned. But she fixed him with her weary penetration. “You try to believe what you CAN’T believe, in order to give yourself excuses. And she does the same--only less, for she recognises less in general the need of them. She’s so grand and simple.” Poor Mr. Cashmore stared. “Grander and simpler than I, you mean?” Mrs. Brookenham thought. “Not simpler--no; but very much grander. She wouldn’t, in the case you conceive, recognise really the need of WHAT you conceive.” Mr. Cashmore wondered--it was almost mystic. “I don’t understand you.” Mrs. Brook, seeing it all from dim depths, tracked it further and further. “We’ve talked her over so!” Mr. Cashmore groaned as if too conscious of it. “Indeed we have!”