"I tell you who has no 'fences,' as you call them," she said,
"and that's Mr. Beebe."

"A parson fenceless would mean a parson defenceless."

Lucy was slow to follow what people said, but quick enough to
detect what they meant. She missed Cecil's epigram, but grasped
the feeling that prompted it.

"Don't you like Mr. Beebe?" she asked thoughtfully.

"I never said so!" he cried. "I consider him far above the
average. I only denied--" And he swept off on the subject of
fences again, and was brilliant.

"Now, a clergyman that I do hate," said she wanting to say
something sympathetic, "a clergyman that does have fences, and
the most dreadful ones, is Mr. Eager, the English chaplain at
Florence. He was truly insincere--not merely the manner
unfortunate. He was a snob, and so conceited, and he did say such
unkind things."

"What sort of things?"

"There was an old man at the Bertolini whom he said had murdered
his wife."

"Perhaps he had."