“I can hardly think she’d be a party to anything of that sort,” rejoined Wagram. “She seemed to me a nice sort of a girl; too nice, in fact, to lend herself to that kind of thing.”
The Squire’s head shot up quickly, and for a moment he looked at his son with grave concern. The two were alone together now.
“Don’t you know lovely woman better than that even by this time, Wagram?” he said.
“Well, I ought to,” was the answer, beneath the tone of which lurked a bitterness of rancour, such as seldom indeed escaped this man, normally so equable and self-possessed with regard to the things, so tolerant and considerate towards the persons, about him.
“I should say so,” assented the Squire; “and I’ll bet you five guineas your acquaintance with this one doesn’t end where it begun.”
“I don’t see how it can. If it hadn’t been for her I should almost certainly have lost my life.”
“If it hadn’t been for her your life would not have been in danger, so the situation is even all round.”
Wagram laughed.
“There’s something in that, father. But you say these are absolutely impossible people?”
“Absolutely and entirely—dangerous as well. Didn’t I tell you just now about one of them and Vance’s eldest idiot? Why, for all we know, it may have been your heroine of to-day.”