“Oh, you’re not satisfactory—not at all satisfactory. Are you still shilly-shallying? What is the matter with young people?” cried the veteran of twenty-nine. “Or was it that wretched Janey, rushing in, like a cow in a conservatory? She’s a regular school-girl!”
“It isn’t that exactly, or at least that’s not all. I hope—I think she does care for me, or will care for me, a little.”
“Oh, bother!” said Mrs. St John Deloraine. She would not, for all the world, reveal the secrets of the confessional, and tell Barton what she knew of the state of Margaret’s heart But she was highly provoked, and showed it in her manners, at no time applauded for their repose.
“The fact is,” Barton admitted, “that I’m so taken by surprise I hardly know where I am! I do think, if I may say so without seeming conceited, that I have every reason to be happy. But, just as she was beginning to tell me about herself, that young lady, who seems to have known her at school, rushed in and explained the whole mystery.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Si John Deloraine, turning a little pale and looking anxiously at Barton, “was it anything so very dreadful?”
“She called her Daisy Shields,” said Barton.
“Well, I suppose she did! I always fancied, after what happened at The Bunhouse, that that dreadful Mr. Cranley sent her to me under a false name. It was not her fault. The question is, What was her reason for keeping her real name concealed?”
“That’s what I’m coming to,” said Barton. “I have a friend, a Mr. Maitland.”
“Mr. Maitland of St. Gatien’s?” asked the widow.
“Yes.”