Well,
just take the hint, love. It comes best, don't it, from one of the
family?"

But Mary left the house in a sad flurry; and even forgot for a street
length to open her parasol.

Her first impulse was to go straight to Richard. But she had not
covered half a dozen yards before she saw that this would never do. At
the best of times Richard abominated gossip; and the fact of it having,
in the present case, dared to fasten its fangs in some one belonging to
him would make him doubly wroth. He might even try to find out who had
started the talk; and get himself into hot water over it. Or he might
want to lay all the blame on his own shoulders--make himself the
reproaches Ned's Polly had not spared him. Worse still, he would
perhaps accuse Purdy of inconsiderateness towards her, and fly into a
rage with him; and then the two of them would quarrel, which would be a
thousand pities. For though he often railed at Purdy, yet that was only
Richard's way: he was genuinely fond of him, and unbent to him as to
nobody else.

But these were just so many pretexts put forward to herself by Mary for
keeping silence; the real reason lay deeper. Eight years of married
life had left her, where certain subjects were concerned, with all the
modesty of her girlhood intact. There were things, indelicate things,
which COULD not be spoken out, even between husband and wife. For her
to have to step before Richard and say: some one else feels for me in
the same way as you, my husband, do, would make her ever after unable
frankly to meet his eyes. Besides giving the vague, cobwebby stuff a
body it did not deserve.

But yet again this was not the whole truth: she had another, more
uncomfortable side of it to face; and the flies buzzed unheeded round
her head. The astonishment she had shown at her sister-in-law's warning
had not been altogether sincere. Far down in her heart Mary found a
faint, faint trace of complicity. For months past--she could admit it
now--she had not felt easy about Purdy. Something disagreeable,
disturbing, had crept into their relations. The jolly, brotherly manner
she liked so well had deserted him; besides short-tempered he had grown
deadly serious, and not the stupidest woman could fail altogether to
see what the matter was. But she had wilfully bandaged her eyes. And
if, now and then, some word or look had pierced her guard and
disquieted her in spite of herself, she had left it at an incredulous:
"Oh, but then..