II

“ Mrs. Honeycott?” said Tommy. “I came here to see Miss Glen.”

Mrs. Honeycott gave him a sharp glance, then went on to Tuppence and took in every detail of her appearance.

“Oh! you did, did you?” she said. “Well, you’d better come inside.”

She led the way into the hall and along it into a room at the back of the house facing on the garden. It was a fair sized room, but looked smaller than it was, owing to the large amount of chairs and tables crowded into it. A big fire burned in the grate, and a chintz covered sofa stood at one side of it. The wall paper was a small grey stripe with a festoon of roses round the top. Quantities of engravings and oil paintings covered the walls.

It was a room almost impossible to associate with the expensive personality of Miss Gilda Glen.

“Sit down,” said Mrs. Honeycott. “To begin with, you’ll excuse me if I say I don’t hold with the Roman Catholic religion. Never did I think to see a Roman Catholic priest in my house. But if Gilda’s gone over to the Scarlet Woman it’s only what’s to be expected in a life like hers⁠—and I daresay it might be worse. She mightn’t have any religion at all. I should think more of Roman Catholics if their priests were married⁠—I always speak my mind. And to think of those convents⁠—quantities of beautiful young girls shut up there, and no one knowing what becomes of them⁠—well, it won’t bear thinking about.”

Mrs. Honeycott came to a full stop, and drew a deep breath.

Without entering upon a defence of the celibacy of the priesthood or the other controversial points touched upon, Tommy went straight to the point.

“I understand, Mrs. Honeycott, that Miss Glen is in this house.”