‘To keep secrets is the very essential of my vocation,’ said Merton.
But this secret, as will be seen, he did not absolutely keep.
‘The arrangements,’ he added, ‘are most judicious.’
‘Guess Pappa was ’cute,’ said Miss McCabe, relapsing into her adopted mannerisms.
‘I think I now understand the case in all its bearings,’ Merton went on. ‘I shall give it my serious consideration. Perhaps I had better say no more at present, but think over the matter. You remain in town for the season?’
‘Guess we’ve staked out a claim in Berkeley Square,’ said Miss McCabe, ‘an agreeable location.’ She mentioned the number of the house.
‘Then we are likely to meet now and then,’ said Merton, ‘and I trust that I may be permitted to wait on you occasionally.’
Miss McCabe graciously assented; her chaperon, Lady Rathcoffey, was summoned by her from the inner chamber and the society of Miss Blossom, the typewriter; the pair drove away, and Merton was left to his own reflections.
‘I do not know what can be done for her,’ he
thought, ‘except to see that there is at least one eligible man, a gentleman, among the crowd of competitors, and that he is a likely man to win the beautiful prize. And that man is Bude, by Jove, if he wants to win it.’