Charteris, acting as Rudolph Musgrave's friend, had patched up this
arrangement; and the colonel and Mrs. Pendomer, so rumor ran, were to be
married very quietly after a decent interval.

Remained only to deliberate whether this sop to the conventions should
be accepted as sufficient.

"At least," as Mrs. Ashmeade sagely observed, "we can combine
vituperation with common-sense, and remember it is not the first time a
Musgrave has figured in an entanglement of the sort. A lecherous race!
proverbial flutterers of petticoats! His surname convicts the man
unheard and almost excuses him. All of us feel that. And, moreover, it
is not as if the idiots had committed any unpardonable sin, for they
have kept out of the newspapers."

Her friend seemed dubious, and hazarded something concerning "the merest
sense of decency."

"In the name of the Prophet, figs! People--I mean the people who count
in Lichfield--are charitable enough to ignore almost any crime which is
just a matter of common knowledge. In fact, they are mildly grateful. It
gives them something to talk about. But when detraction is printed in
the morning paper you can't overlook it without incurring the suspicion
of being illiterate and virtueless. That's Lichfield."

"But, Polly--"

"Sophist, don't I know my Lichfield? I know it almost as well as I know
Rudolph Musgrave. And so I prophesy that he will not marry Clarice
Pendomer, because he is inevitably tired of her by this. He will marry