I intended to answer: "Oh! I'm so sorry if I have said the wrong thing! But I was quite certain that you meant me to guess who 'THE' girl was! I thought it was the one who is staying with her mother in your house now. But if I've said anything I oughtn't to have said, Mr. Wynn——"
Here I'd intended to break off again. I should not need to emphasize the "Mr. Wynn." I'd just let it drop perfectly casually. He would rise to it all right!
He would say, or snap, or bark "How did you know I had another name?" And I could take it quite lightly by saying "Oh, doesn't everybody know that?"
After which, I thought, it would be his turn to be hopelessly puzzled. He would wonder if I'd known ever since I had been on the farm.... He'd ask questions, he'd give himself away, he'd show me what he meant! That was what I wanted! To know what he did mean, whether it was about Muriel Elvey or me or both of us. And now I should find out and put an end to all this hectic suspense.
I had got it all planned by the Wednesday of that week.
But alas for all human plans! Especially those which have anything to do with what one is going to say to young men. I ask any girl who reads this story to bear me out. One never says what one thought one was going to say so effectually. These brilliant conversational openings are not given. These happy retorts do not come off. Nothing occurs that one had hoped.
Only the unexpected happens; if that. For what did I hear, on the Thursday of that week, about Captain Holiday?
Why, that I was not to see him at all.
He had left Careg. He had gone away!