h if it's only your opinion!"

"But it is not. It is knowledge."

"Then you know Mr. Arabian?"

"I didn't say that."

"Do you know him?"

Lady Sellingworth turned away for a moment. She stood with her back to
Miss Van Tuyn and her face towards the fire, holding the mantelpiece
with her right hand. Miss Van Tuyn, motionless, stared at her tall
figure. She felt this was a real battle between herself and her friend,
or enemy. She was determined to win it somehow. She still had a
weapon in reserve, the weapon she had thought of just now when she had
resolutely put away her fear of Arabian. But perhaps she would not
be forced to use it, perhaps she could overcome Adela's extraordinary
resistance without it. As she looked at the woman turned from her she
began to think that might be possible. Adela was surely weakening. This
pause, this sudden moving away, this long hesitation suggested weakness.
At last Lady Sellingworth turned round.

"You ask me whether I know that man."

"I asked you whether you knew _Mr. Arabian_!" said Miss Van Tuyn, on a
note of acute exasperation.

"I don't know him."

"That is a lie!" said Miss Van Tuyn to herself.

To Lady Sellingworth she said:

"Then if you don't know Mr. Arabian you are only repeating hearsay."

"No!"

"But you must be!"

"I am not."

"Adela, you are incomprehensible, or else I must be densely stupid. One
or the other!"

"One may know things about a man's character and life without being
personally acquainted with him."

"Then it's hearsay. I am not going to drop Mr. Arabian because of
hearsay, more especially when I don't even know what the hearsay is."

"It is not hearsay."

"It doesn't come from other people?"

"No."

"Then"--a sudden thought struck her--"is it from the newspapers? Has he
ever been in some case, some scandal, that's been in the newspapers?"

"Not that I know of. It isn't that."

"Really this is like the 'Mysteries of Udolpho,'" said Miss van Tuyn,
concealing her anger and her burning curiosity under a pretence of
petulance. "And I really can't take it seriously."

"But you must, Beryl. You must!"

Lady Sellingworth came to her quickly and sat down beside her.

"I know my conduct must seem very strange."

"It does, indeed!"

"And I dare say all sorts of suspicions, ugly suspicions perhaps, have
come into your mind. But try to put them away. Try to believe that I am
honestly doing my best to be a friend to you, a true frien