Pybus could want cheapening fowls again
in the market, when she had bad poultry from Livermore's two days
before)--"and as for Mr. Smirke, my dear Betsy, will you promise me that
you will never breathe to any mortal what I am going to tell you as a
profound secret?"
"What is it, my dear John!--of course I won't," answered the Rector's
lady.
"Well, then--I cannot say it is a fact, mind--but if you find that Smirke
is at this moment--ay, and has been for years--engaged to a young lady, a
Miss--a Miss Thompson, if you will have the name, who lives on Clapham
Common--yes, on Clapham Common, not far from Mrs. Smirke's house, what
becomes of your story then about Smirke and Mrs. Pendennis?"
"Why did you not tell me this before?" asked the Doctor's wife.--"How
long have you known it?--How we all of us have been deceived in that
man!"
"Why should I meddle in other folks' business, my dear?" the Doctor
answered. "I know how to keep a secret--and perhaps this is only an
invention like that other absurd story; at least, Madame Portman, I
should never have told you this but for the other, which I beg you to
contradict whenever you hear it.
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