“Exactly the opposite, I should say. But I’ve hardly seen her, you know.”
“Well, well. … And the mother?”
“No good at all,” said Mr. Morton.
“Then the girl’s the sheet anchor. … In love with him, do you know?”
“Lord! How d’you expect me to know that?”
The old man pondered in silence, seeming to assimilate the situation.
“He’s in a devil of a mess,” he said, with abrupt cheerfulness. “That man Vincent—”
“Well?”
“He’s the most dangerous of the lot. Just because he’s honest.”
“Good God!” broke in the other again suddenly. “Do all Catholics believe this rubbish?”
“My dear friend, of course they don’t. Not one in a thousand. I wish they did. That’s what’s the matter. But they laugh at it—laugh at it!” … His voice cracked into shrill falsetto. … “Laugh at hellfire. … Is Sunday the day, did you say?”
“He told me the twenty-fifth.”
“And at that woman’s in Queen’s Gate, I suppose?”
“Expect so. He didn’t say. Or I forget.”
“I heard they were at their games there again,” said Mr. Cathcart with meditative geniality. “I’d like to blow up the stinking hole.”
Mr. Morton chuckled audibly.