“What do you mean by your ‘oh’? it was, I tell you—hotly. I dare say. But it won’t look like it to them when they find it out.”

“What do you mean?”

“Only what I say. You’ll be run in, somehow, of course; you’re not the sort of fellow to do it under the rose. Well, when it comes out they won’t believe but that you had some object in view.”

“Go on, Jack; you’re a marvel of precocious wisdom! I tell you, I’d never seen or heard of them before.”

“Not Miss Aitcheson?”

“Oh, Miss Aitcheson! I’m sure I never want to see Miss Aitcheson again.”

“Was she there?”

“Yes.”

“And don’t you suppose she recognised you?”

“Shouldn’t wonder.”