"Their relations!" she murmured to
Dr. Livingstone. "What awful things to talk about."
"The story I mean," Alicia explained, "is to the effect that Mr.
Bradley, who is married, but unimportantly, made a heavy bet, when he
met this girl, that he would subdue her absolutely through her passion
for her art--I mean, of course, her affections----"
"My dear girl, we know what you mean," cried Mrs. Barberry, entering a
protest, as it were, on behalf of the gentlemen.
"And precisely the reverse happened."
"One imagines it was something like that," Lindsay said.
"Oh, did she know about the bet?" cried Mrs. Barberry.
"That's as you like to believe. I fancy she knew about the man," Lindsay
contributed again.
"Tables turned, eh? Dare say it served him right," remarked Dr.
Livingstone. "If you really want to come to the laboratory, Mrs.
Barberry, we ought to be off."
"He is going to show me a bacillus," Mrs. Barberry announced with
enthusiasm. "Plague, or cholera, or something really bad. He caught it
two days ago, and put it in jelly for me--wasn't it dear of him?
Good-bye, you nice thing,"--Mrs. Barberry addressed Alicia--"Good-bye,
Mr. Lindsay. Fancy a live bacillus from Hong Kong! I should like it
better if it came from fascinating Japan, but still--good-bye.
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