“I want a term stated, that is all. I have no objection to the young lady, or any fault to find with her. We get on very well together on the whole. But don’t you think you are taking rather an unfair advantage of my good-nature, not to speak of my—of my not too impeccable human one?”
Rather to my surprise the challenge evoked no opprobrious response, nor indeed any response at all for a little. A student of physiognomy might even have fancied he detected in Marion’s expression a certain shiftiness, a desire to avoid straight issues.
“I think,” she said presently, “that, as to that, you will be guided by your own sense of fitness and propriety. I trusted to it at the first, Felix, and I trust to it now.”
“That is all very well, my good sister; but I never understood that the compact was to be an indefinite one.”
“It is not to be, of course; only—I tell you this candidly, Felix—the predicament which forced it upon us is not yet safely resolved.”
“Does the Marquis know that his daughter has fled from him, and is in hiding somewhere?”
“There is no reason why you should not be told that. Yes, he does.”
“And why does he not visit the knowledge upon you, her confidante and abettor?”
“I did not say he did not. But leave me out of the question; I can look after myself. It may be that he respects in me a certain force of character, which is not to be debarred from its duty by threats and bribery; it may be that heaven has granted me a certain power of exorcism over demons; it may be, as I told you before, that he sees in me the only possible clue to the secret of his child’s disappearance. That clue will remain safe, so long—so long as you are faithful, Felix.”
“H’mph!” I pondered the thing awhile, not satisfied, nor, it must be admitted, wholly discontent. “Then it seems,” I said, “that I have no choice in the matter.”