“I was afraid you would not be excessively pleased,” Pen said anxiously. “Do you suppose that it means that he knows who I am?”
“Not that, no,” Sir Richard replied.
“Perhaps,” suggested Pen, “he guessed that I am not a boy?”
“Perhaps.”
She thought the matter over. “Well, I don’t see what else he could possibly have meant. But Jimmy Yarde never suspected me, and I conversed with him far more than I did with this disagreeable stammering-man. How very unfortunate it is that we should have met someone who knows you well!”
“I beg your pardon?” said Sir Richard, putting up his glass.
She looked innocently up at him. “On account of his being aware that you have no nephew or cousin like me, I mean.”
“Oh!” said Sir Richard, lowering the glass. “I see. Don’t let it worry you!”
“Well, it does worry me, because I see now that I have been imprudent. I should not have let you come with me. It has very likely placed you in an awkward situation.”
“That aspect of it had not occurred to me,” said Sir Richard, faintly smiling. “The imprudence was mine. I ought to have handed you over to your aunt at our first meeting.”