“I!” said Wareham, with surprise. He added that it was unlikely that he would find an opportunity in the short time they would be together.
“I thought you travelled with the Ravenhills?”
“Accidentally.”
“Have you fallen out?”
“No, no,” he protested, half amused, half provoked. “But chance having thrown us together, does not bind us.”
“It might. Chance might have much to answer for,” she went on rapidly. “While it keeps you near us, do be good to my unlucky Tom! I thought he and Anne would have amused each other, but they do not. I hope,”—she reached the point to which he had divined she was tending, and adopted a careless air—“I hope that Tom did not try to run down Anne? He has a deceptive way of saying more than he means, and saying it in his melancholy way produces a stronger effect than if it came from an ordinary person; as I always tell him, I don’t think he is in the least aware of the impression he makes. Anne is the dearest girl in the world!”
Wareham felt as if fate were determined to force his opinion about Miss Dalrymple; he answered cautiously—
“I understood from Colonel Martyn that you were friends.”
She looked at him.
“I don’t believe that either he or you stopped there!”