Facts are
stubborn things; they won't serialize. But now and then there's a case.
There was one a little time ago. Oh, there was a great case not long
since, if we had but the man to handle it, without spoiling it, in
English fiction!"
"And what was that?"
"The Minchin case!"
And he looked straight at her, as one only looks at one's neighbor at
table when one is saying or hearing something out of the common; he
turned half round, and he looked in Rachel's face with the smile of an
artist with a masterpiece in his eye. It was an inevitable moment, come
at last when least expected; instinct, however, had prepared Rachel,
just one moment before; and after all she could stare coldly on his
enthusiasm, without a start or a tremor to betray the pose.
"Yes?" she said, her fine eyebrows raised a little. "And do you really
think that would make a book?"
It was characteristic of Rachel that she did not for a moment--even that
unlooked-for moment--pretend to be unfamiliar with the case.
"Don't you?" he asked.
"I haven't thought about it," said Rachel, looking pensively at the
flowers. "But surely it was a very sordid case?"
"The case!" he cried.
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