“I think,” Mademoiselle replies, without any action, and in a clear, obliging voice, “that you are a miserable wretch.”

“Probably,” returns Mr Tulkinghorn, quietly blowing his nose. “But I don’t ask what you think of myself; I ask what you think of the prison.”

“Nothing. What does it matter to me?”

“Why it matters this much, mistress,” says the lawyer, deliberately putting away his handkerchief, and adjusting his frill, “the law is so despotic here, that it interferes to prevent any of our good English citizens from being troubled, even by a lady’s visits, against his desire. And, on his complaining that he is so troubled, it takes hold of the troublesome lady, and shuts her up in prison under hard discipline. Turns the key upon her, mistress.” Illustrating with the cellar key.

“Truly?” returns Mademoiselle, in the same pleasant voice. “That is droll! But — my faith! — still what does it matter to me?”

“My fair friend,” says Mr Tulkinghorn, “make another visit here, or at Mr Snagsby’s, and you shall learn.”

“In that case you will send me to the prison perhaps?”

“Perhaps.”

It would be contradictory for one in Mademoiselle’s state of agreeable jocularity to foam at the mouth, otherwise a tigerish expansion thereabouts might look as if a very little more would make her do it.

“In a word, mistress,” says Mr Tulkinghorn, “I am sorry to be unpolite, but if you ever present yourself uninvited here — or there — again, I will give you over to the police. Their gallantry is great, but they carry troublesome people through the streets in an ignominious manner; strapped down on a board, my good wench.”

“I will prove you,” whispers Mademoiselle, stretching out her hand, “I will try if you dare to do it!”

“And if,” pursues the lawyer, without minding her, “I place you in that good condition of being locked up in jail, it will be some time before you find yourself at liberty again.”

“I will prove you,” repeats Mademoiselle in her former whisper.

“And now,” proceeds the lawyer, still without minding her, “you had better go. Think twice, before you come here again.”

“Think you,” she answers, “twice two hundred times!”

“You were dismissed by your lady, you know,” Mr Tulkinghorn observes, following her out upon the staircase, “as the most implacable and unmanageable of women. Now turn over a new leaf, and take warning by what I say to you. For what I say, I mean; and what I threaten, I will do, mistress.”

She goes down without answering or looking behind her. When she is gone, he goes down too; and returning with his cobweb-covered bottle, devotes himself to a leisurely enjoyment of its contents: now and then, as he throws his head back in his chair, catching sight of the pertinacious Roman pointing from the ceiling.