“I can assure you,” Peter Ruff said, sincerely, “that you need have no fears—no fears at all. Just speak to me quite frankly. Mr. Fitzgerald was a friend of yours, was he not?”
Maud simpered.
“He was more than that,” she answered, looking down. “We were engaged to be married.”
Peter Ruff sighed.
“I knew all about it,” he declared. “Fitzgerald used to tell me everything.”
“You were his friend?” she asked, looking him in the face.
“I was,” Peter Ruff answered fervently, “his best friend! No one was more grieved than I about that—little mistake.”
She sighed.
“In some ways,” she remarked softly, “you remind me of him.”
“You could scarcely say anything,” Peter Ruff murmured “which would give me more pleasure. I am flattered.”