'You,' she said, after a time.
He moved involuntarily, and then drew a little further away from her, as he might have withdrawn a foot from the edge of a precipice, out of common caution. She was aware of his slight change of position without turning her eyes.
'What made you say what you did to Mrs. Rushmore yesterday afternoon?' she asked.
'About you?'
'Yes.'
'She asked me, point-blank, what I thought of Logotheti,' Van Torp answered. 'I told her that I couldn't give her an unbiassed opinion of the man you meant to marry, because I had always hoped to marry you myself.'
'Oh—was that the way it happened?' [{172}]
'Mrs. Rushmore could hardly have misunderstood me,' said Van Torp, gathering the reins of himself, so to say, for anything that might happen.
'No. But it sounds differently when you say it yourself.'
'That was just what I said, anyhow,' answered Van Torp. 'I didn't think she'd go and tell you right away, but since she has, I don't regret having said that much.'