“A sailor, then?”
“No, Miss Carr,” I said, shaking my head. “I should either like to be a barrister or a doctor. I think I should like to be a doctor. No, I should like to be an engineer, and help Mr Hallett with his—”
I stopped short and coloured, for I felt that I had nearly betrayed my friend.
“Well?” she said in a strange, hesitating way, “Mr Hallett’s what?”
“Please don’t think me ungrateful, Miss Carr,” I said, “but I cannot tell you. Mr Hallett trusted to me the secret of what he is making, and I cannot say more. Yes, I may say that he is busy over a great invention.”
I fancied she drew her breath as if it caught and gave her pain, but her face was like marble as she went on.
“Antony, you are quite right,” she said; “and if I had ever had any doubts about your being a gentleman’s son, these words would have removed it. So you would like to be an engineer?”
“Yes,” I said, “very much.”
She continued walking up and down the room, and then went on:
“You lodge, you say, with a Mr Revitts, a policeman. Is he respectable and nice?”