“Why, I don’t think Mrs. Braithwaite’s a saint,” he protested. “She _looks_ rather like one—a pretty one, too—and the general report is that she _is_ one; but I don’t know anything more than that about her. She happens to be a neighbour; but we’ve never had the slightest intimacy with her and her husband. We’ve never been in their house or they in ours; I bow to her when I see her and sometimes exchange a few words with her across the hedge between our two yards, usually about the weather. I don’t think anything about her at all.” “Then it’s time you did,” Mrs. Dodge said with prompt inconsistency. “All right. What do you want me to think about her, Lydia?” “Nothing!” she said, sharply. “Oh, laugh if you want to! I’ll tell you just this much: I found out something about her by pure accident; and I decided I’d never tell anybody in the world—not even you. I’m not the kind of person to wreck anybody’s life exactly; and I decided just to bury what I happened to find out. What’s more, I’d have kept it _all_ buried if she’d had sense enough to let me alone. I wouldn’t even have told you that I know something about her.” “It’s something really serious?” “‘Serious’?” she said. “No, it’s not ‘serious.’ It’s ruinous.” Mr. Dodge released a sound from his mouth. “Whee-ew!” Whistled, not spoken, it was his characteristic token that he found himself impressed. “You’ve certainly followed the right course, Lydia. Mrs. Leslie Braithwaite’s standing isn’t just a high one; it’s lofty. I shouldn’t care to be the person who blasts that statue off its pedestal;—sometimes statues crush the blasters when they fall. I’m glad you kept your information to yourself.” He paused, and then, being morally but an ordinary man, he added, “Not—not that I see any particular harm in your confiding in my discretion in such a matter.” “Didn’t I explain I’m not confiding in your discretion?” Mrs. Dodge returned. “Lately, I don’t believe you have any. I’ve told you this much so that next time you won’t be so hasty in sending checks to women who are merely using you to annoy your wife.” He sighed. “There’s where you puzzle me, Lydia. If you found out something ruinous about Mrs. Braithwaite, as you say, and if she knows you did—you intimated she knows it, I think?” “Absolutely.” “Then I should think you’d be the last person in the world she’d want to annoy. I should think she’d do everything on earth to please you and placate you. She’d want to keep you from telling. That’s the weak point in your theory, Lydia.” “It isn’t a theory. I’m speaking of facts.” “But if she knows you’re aware of what might ruin her,” he insisted, “she would naturally be afraid of you. Then why would she do a thing that might infuriate you?” “Because she’s a woman,” said Mrs. Dodge. “And that’s something you’ll never understand!” “But even a woman would behave with some remnants of caution, under the circumstances, wouldn’t she?”