I knew I should get the name wrong....
_Bradshaw!_ Yes, of course." Her vivid perception of what the name
really is, when apprised of it, almost amounts to a paroxysm. You see,
on the pier that day, she made a bad blunder over those Bradshaw
people, and though she had consoled her conscience by admitting to
her husband that she had "_mis le pied dans le plat_," still, she
thought, if she was actually going to plump down on Mrs. Fenwick's
piece of beach, she ought to do a little more apology. By-the-bye,
why is it that ladies of her sort always resort to snippets of French
idiom, whenever they get involved in a quagmire of delicacy--or
indelicacy, as may be? Will Gwendolen grow like her mother? However,
that doesn't concern us now.

A little stiffness on Rosalind's part was really due to her wish to
be by herself, but Mrs. Arkwright ascribed it to treasured resentment
against her blunders of two days since. Now, she was a person who
could never let anything drop--a tugging person. She proceeded to
develop the subject.

"Really a most interesting story! I need hardly say that my informants
had given me no particulars. Very old friends of my husband's. Quite
possible they really knew nothing of this young gentleman's musical
gifts. Simply told my husband the tale as I told it to you. Just
that the daughter of an old friend of theirs, Professor Sales
Wilson--_the_ Professor Sales Wilson--of course, quite a famous name
in literature--scholarship--that sort of thing--had run away with a
shopman! That was what my husband heard, you know. _I_ merely
repeated it."

"Wasn't it, as things go, rather a malicious way of putting it--on
their part?"

Mrs. Arkwright gave sagacious nods, indicative of comfortable
"_we_-know-the-world-we-live-in-and-won't-pretend" relationships
between herself and the speaker. They advertised perfect mutual
understanding on a pinnacle of married experience. Fancy there being
any need for anything else between _us_! they said. Their editor then
supplied explanatory text: "Of course there may have been a _soupcon_
of personal feeling in the case--bias, pique, whatever one likes to
call it. _You_ know, dear Mrs. Fenwick?" But Mrs. Fenwick waited for
further illumination. "Well, you know ... I suppose it's rather a
breach of confidence, only I know I shall be safe with _you_...."

"Don't tell me any secrets, Mrs. Arkwright. I'm not safe." But Mrs.
Arkwright was not a person to be put off in this way.