Miss Montressor was endowed with very good sense, and it showed her at once that Dolby was speaking the truth. She did not understand much about his business--she had never cared enough about him to try;--but she was alive to the reasonableness of his refusal to gratify her wish--a wish dictated a good deal more by amour propre than any sentimental longing to enjoy his society to the last possible moment. She accordingly recovered herself; and with no more protest than a dubious shake of the head, resumed her seat and prepared to listen to Mr. Dolby.
'Well,' she said, 'go on; what have you got to say to me?'
'That,' said Mr. Dolby seriously, 'I have always found you trustworthy. Nine women out of ten, on being told that it was a matter of importance to me that no American in London should know that am in London, would have betrayed the fact to every American of her acquaintance, from an amiable desire to penetrate the motive of my injunction. I am quite sure that you have scrupulously observed it.'
'Certainly,' said she; 'it don't matter to me. Why should I go and talk about you when you ask me not? That would be simply perverse.'
'Nine women out of ten, my dear,' said Mr. Dolby, 'are perverse. I esteem myself very fortunate to have found the exceptional tenth.'
'I hate men who are always sneering at women,' said Miss Montressor; 'it's a bad sign.'
'For the women?'
'No, sir, for the men. But I daresay you have been very ill-treated in your time; only it doesn't matter to me what women you think ill of, provided you think well of me, so I will take the compliment. I assure you once again that I never mentioned your name to any American--or rather, I should say, to the only American I know.
'That is Mr. Foster,' said Mr. Dolby, with a slight effort.
'Yes,' said Miss Montressor, 'to Mr. Foster. I like him so much,' she added in a brisk parenthesis. 'Do you know him?'