"Who is it?" Edward Henry pursued lightly, for though he appreciated Mr. Harrier, he also despised him. However, he found the grace to add: "May one ask?"
"It's Miss Elsie April."
"Do you mean to say, Marrier," complained Edward Henry, "that you've known Miss Elsie April all these months and never told me?... There aren't two, I suppose? It's the cousin or something of Rose Euclid?"
Mr. Marrier nodded. "The fact is," he said, "she and I are joint honorary organizing secretaries for the annual conference of the Azure Society. You know—it leads the New Thought movement in England."
"You never told me that, either?"
"Didn't I, sir? I didn't think it would interest you. Besides, both Miss April and I are comparatively new members."
"Oh," said Edward Henry, with all the canny provincial's conviction of his own superior shrewdness; and he repeated, so as to intensify this conviction and impress it on others, "Oh!" In the undergrowth of his mind was the thought: "How dare this man whose brains belong to me be the organizing secretary of something that I don't know anything about and don't want to know anything about?"
"Yes," said Mr. Marrier, modestly.
"I say," Edward Henry inquired warmly, with an impulsive gesture, "who is she?"
"Who is she?" repeated Mr. Marrier, blankly.