Mrs. Fairfax again looked doubtfully at him. “I cannot make you out at all, Mr. Conolly,” she said submissively. “I hope I have not offended you.”
“Not in the least. I take it that having observed certain circumstances which seemed to threaten the welfare of one very dear to you (as, I am aware, Marian is), the trouble they caused you found unpremeditated expression in the course of a conversation with me.” Conolly beamed at her, as if he thought this rather neatly turned.
“Exactly so. But I do not wish you to think that I have observed anything particular.”
“Certainly not. Still, you think there would be no harm in my writing to Marian to say that her behavior has attracted your notice, and——”
“Good heavens, Mr. Conolly, you must not mention me in the matter! You are so innocent—at least so frank, so workmanlike, if I may say so, in your way of dealing with things! I would not have Marian know what I have said—I really did not notice anything—for worlds. You had better not write at all, but just go down as if you went merely to enjoy yourself; and dont on any account let Marian suspect that you have heard anything. Goodness knows what mischief you might make, in your—your ingenuousness!”
“But I should have thought that the opinion of an old and valued friend like yourself would have special weight with her.”
“You know nothing about it. Clever engineer as you are, you do not understand the little wheels by which our great machine of society is worked.”
“True, Mrs. Leith Fairfax,” he rejoined, echoing the cadence of her sentence. “Educated as a mere mechanic, I am still a stranger to the elegancies of life. I usually depend on Marian for direction; but since you think that it would be injudicious to appeal to her in the present instance——”
“Out of the question, Mr. Conolly.”
“—I must trust to your guidance in the matter. What do you suggest?”