“Has not Miss Courtenay got one?” said he, leaning, forward, and trying to catch her eyes; but she had dropped them too suddenly for him.
“Not that I’m aware of,” said she; and if he had been gifted with a nice ear, he would have perceived: that a slight vibration marked the words as they fell.
“By the way,” said M’Kinlay—a most unlucky à propos—“have I your perfect approval in my arrangement for that young Irish lady—or girl—Miss O’Hara?”
Now the words “by the way,” had so completely touched her to the quick, that for an instant her face became crimson.
“If you will first of all tell me what the arrangements are,” said she, with a forced calm, “perhaps I may be able to say if I like them.”
“Has Mademoiselle not told you anything?”
“Mademoiselle has told me, simply, that Mr. M’Kinlay assumed the whole responsibility of the case, and neither counselled with her nor divulged his intentions.”
“Ah, that was not quite fair; I really must say, that Mademoiselle did not represent me as I think I merit. It was a sort of case perfectly new to me. It was not very easy to see one’s way. I could not make out whether you would all be better pleased by some costly arrangement for the girl, or by having her sent straight back to where she came from. The mystery that hung over——” he paused and stammered; he had said what he had not intended, and he blundered in his attempt to recal it. “I mean,” added he, “that mystery that the old diplomatist insists on connecting with her.”
“As how?” said Georgina, in a low, soft voice, intensely insinuating in its cadence—“as how?”
“It’s not very easy to say how, so much of what he said was vague, so much hypothetical; and, indeed, so much that seemed——” He stopped, confused, and puzzled how to go on.