But she refused emphatically.
“Certainly not. How can you say there’s an obstacle when you know nothing whatever about me except that I’ve good-naturedly relieved you all of a burden?” she said firmly. “No. What I want you to do is to tell them that—that—”
“I’ll tell them that you’re engaged to be married,” said Bayre, with a happy thought. “That will put an end to any aspirations either of them might have without letting them into any secrets.”
“You don’t know any of my secrets,” retorted Miss Merriman, sharply.
Bayre gave her one look and then bowed without speaking.
She had to be content with that; for although she began to interrogate him quickly as to what he knew, or guessed, she changed her mind before he could make any reply, and telling him haughtily that he could invent what he pleased about her, she let him go.
Bayre felt himself to be in a difficulty. Certainly he did not know very much of absolute knowledge, but he could guess a good deal; and if his suspicions were correct there was an end to Southerley’s hopes. Between a chivalrous wish to respect the secret of a lady, a secret, too, which he could not be said to have more than guessed at, and his wish to spare his friend the pain of useless longing, Bayre found himself placed in a dilemma.
The consequence was that when he re-entered the common sitting-room there was just enough uneasiness discernible in his look and manner to fill both his friends with anxiety.
Of course this anxiety took an insulting form.
“Well, have you cut us out?” asked Repton, mockingly, looking at him askance from his armchair.