seeming to suggest that her own mind had anything Fescennine about it.
This is always the great difficulty skywardness has in dealing with
the moral scavenger. Are not the motives of purity unimpeachable?

Goody Vereker, however, did not suspect herself of being a fool. On
the contrary, she felt highly satisfied with her speech, and may be
said to have hugged its peroration. Her son flushed slightly and bit
his lip, giving the old lady time for a corollary in a subdued and
chastened voice.

"Had I been asked--had you consulted me, my dear--I should certainly
have advised that Mr. Fenwick should have been accompanied by another
married man, certainly not by a young, single gentleman. The man
himself--I am referring to the owner of the boat--would have done
quite well, whether married or single. Boatmen are seldom unmarried,
though frequently tattooed with ladies' names when they have been in
the navy. You see something to laugh at, Conrad? In your mother! But
I am used to it." The doctor's smile was in memory of two sun-browned
arms that had pushed the boat off two hours ago. One had Elinor and
Kate on it, the other Bessie and a Union Jack.

"Don't you think, mother dear," said the doctor at last, "that if
Mrs. Fenwick, who knew all about it, had seen anything outrageous
she would have spoken? She really only seemed anxious none of us
should get drowned."

"Very likely, my dear; she would be. You will, I am sure, do me this
justice, that I have throughout said, from the very beginning, that
Mrs. Fenwick is a most excellent person, though I have sometimes
found her tiring."

"I am sorry she has tired you. You must always tell her, you know,
when you're tired, and then she'll come and fetch me." The doctor
resisted a temptation to ask, "From the very beginning of _what_?"
For the suggestion that materials for laceration were simmering was
without foundation; was, in fact, only an example of the speaker's
method. She followed it with another.

"It is so often the case with women who have passed a good deal of
time in India."

"Are women tiring when they have passed a good deal of time in India?"

"My dear Conrad, _is it likely_ I should talk such nonsense? You know
perfectly well what I mean." But the doctor merely awaited natural
development, which came. "Mind, I do not say I _believe_ Mrs. Julius
Bradshaw's story. But it would quite account for it--fully!"

What would account for what? Heaven only knew! Howeve