“No. No, he cannot be, of course. But what could he be doing here? It is absurd!—it must be absurd!”
He turned his head. “That sounds as though you have been thinking what I have said,” he remarked shrewdly.
She glanced at him, and away again. “Nonsense! You must let me tell you that you are a great deal too fanciful, Captain Staple!”
He smiled very warmly at her. “Oh, I would let you tell me anything!” he said. “You are quite right, of course, not to confide in strangers.”
She gave a little gasp, and retorted: “Very true—if I had anything to confide! I assure you, I have not!”
“No, don’t do that,” he said. “I don’t mean to tease you with questions you don’t care to answer. But if you think, at any time, that I could be of service to you, why, tell me!”
“You—you are the strangest creature!” she said, on an uncertain laugh. “Pray, what service could I possibly stand in need of?”
“I don’t know that: how could I? Something is troubling you. I think I knew that,” he added reflectively, “when that would-be Tulip of Fashion put you so much out of countenance this morning.”
Her chin lifted; she said, with a curling lip: “Do you think I am afraid of that counter-coxcomb?”
“Lord, no! Why should you be?”