"Of course I can't. That's why I'm asking you."

"I know nothing. I've hardly seen her."

Miss Proctor looked as if she were seeing her that moment without Fanny
Eliott's help.

"Poor dear Anne."

Anne Fletcher had been simply dear Anne, Mrs. Walter Majendie was poor
dear Anne.

Her friends were all sorry for her. They were inclined to be indignant
with Edith Majendie, who, they declared, had been at the bottom of her
marriage all along. She was the cause of Anne's original callings in
Prior Street. If it had not been for Edith, Anne could never have
penetrated that secret bachelor abode. The engagement had been an
awkward, unsatisfactory, sinister affair. It was a pity that Mr.
Majendie's domestic circumstances were such that poor dear Anne appeared
as having made all the necessary approaches and advances. If Mr. Majendie
had had a family that family would have had to call on Anne. But Mr.
Majendie hadn't a family, he had only Edith, which was worse than having
nobody at all. And then, besides, there was his history.

Mrs. Eliott looked distressed. Mr. Majendie's history could not
be explained away as too ancient to be interesting. In Scale a
seven-year-old event is still startlingly, unforgetably modern. Anne's
marriage had saddled her friends with a difficult responsibility, the
justification of Anne for that astounding step.