This is all very disagreeable, and I don't like to talk about it,
but as I hear Piers Otway has been seeing you, it's better you
should know." She added "very kind regards," and signed herself
"yours affectionately." Then came a postscript. "Mrs. A. Otway is
actually on the music-hall stage herself, in short skirts!"
The paper shook in Irene's hand. She turned sick with fear and
misery.
Mechanically the other letter was torn open. Dr. Derwent wrote about
Eustace's engagement. It did not exactly surprise him; he had
observed significant things. Nor did it exactly displease him, for
since talking with Eustace and with Marian Jacks (the widow), he
suspected that the match was remarkable for its fitness. Mrs. Jacks
had a large fortune--well, one could resign oneself to that.
"After all, Mam'zelle Wren, there's nothing to be uneasy about.
Arnold Jacks is sure to marry very soon (a dowager duchess, I should
say), and on that score there'll be no awkwardness. When the Wren
makes a nest for herself, I shall convert this house into a big
laboratory, and be at home only to bacteria."
But the Doctor, too, had a postscriptum. "Olga has been writing to
me, sheer scandal, something about the letters you wot of having
been obtained in a dishonest way. I won't say I believe it, or that
I disbelieve it. I mention the thing only to suggest that perhaps I
was right in not making any acknowledgment of that obligation.
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