conduct--well, it would serve no useful purpose to go into that.
Candidly, on the other hand, Mr. Danton did make some extremely
helpful suggestions--basing them, of course, on the TRUTH of your
account. He has seen a good deal of life; and certainly very
mysterious things do occur to quite innocent and well-meaning
people without the faintest shadow of warning, and as Mr. Bethany
himself said, evil birds do come home to roost, and often out of
a clear sky, as it were. But there, every fresh solution that
occurs to me only makes the thing more preposterous, more, I was
going to say, disreputable--I mean, of course, to the outside
world. And we have our duties to perform to them too, I suppose.
Why, what can we say? What plausible account of ourselves have
we? We shall never be able to look anybody in the face again. I
can only--I am compelled to believe that God has been pleased to
make this precise visitation upon us--an eye for an eye, I
suppose, SOMEWHERE. And to that conviction I shall hold until
actual circumstances convince me that it's false. What, however,
and this is all that I have to say now, what I cannot understand
are your amazing indiscretions.'

'Do you understand your own, Sheila?'

'My indiscretions, Arthur?'

'Well,' said Lawford, 'wasn't it indiscreet, don't you think, to
risk divine retribution by marrying me? Shouldn't you have
inquired? Wasn't it indiscreet to allow me to remain here in--in
my "visitation?" Wasn't it indiscreet to risk the moral stigma
this unhappy face of mine must cast on its surroundings? I am not
sure whether such a change as this constitutes cruelty.... Oh,