‘Oh!’ assented Jenny, screwing up her mouth with an appearance of conviction. ‘Yes, to be sure! That accounts for your having so much time to give to interceding. But only to think how kind and friendly a gentleman you must be!’
Mr Fledgeby found that he was skating round a board marked Dangerous, and had better cut out a fresh track. ‘Let’s get back to the dodgerest of the dodgers,’ said he. ‘What’s he up to in the case of your friend the handsome gal? He must have some object. What’s his object?’
‘Cannot undertake to say, sir, I am sure!’ returned Miss Wren, composedly.
‘He won’t acknowledge where she’s gone,’ said Fledgeby; ‘and I have a fancy that I should like to have another look at her. Now I know he knows where she is gone.’
‘Cannot undertake to say, sir, I am sure!’ Miss Wren again rejoined.
‘And you know where she is gone,’ hazarded Fledgeby.
‘Cannot undertake to say, sir, really,’ replied Miss Wren.
The quaint little chin met Mr Fledgeby’s gaze with such a baffling hitch, that that agreeable gentleman was for some time at a loss how to resume his fascinating part in the dialogue. At length he said:
‘Miss Jenny!—That’s your name, if I don’t mistake?’
‘Probably you don’t mistake, sir,’ was Miss Wren’s cool answer; ‘because you had it on the best authority. Mine, you know.’