"I do not. She did not give me her confidence," said Mordaunt, as shortly as he durst.
Bernard's eyes twinkled. "Was it necessary? With your talent, one ought not to find it difficult to read a girl's mind."
"I haven't always found it easy," Mordaunt rejoined.
"Well, I suppose Evelyn is really a woman now; when one gets old one forgets that the young grow up," Bernard remarked. "Besides, she has an admirable model in Janet. But take me in; I soon get cramped in this confounded chair."
Mordaunt set off and on his way to the house carefully skirted a spot where a tree had been uprooted and the turf relaid. To his surprise Bernard made an impatient sign.
"Go straight across!"
They crossed the freshly-sodded belt and when Mordaunt stopped on the terrace Bernard said: "It will not be your job to roll out our tracks."
"I thought it would bother you if I went across," Mordaunt replied.
Bernard gave him a sour smile. "I well know my relations' views about my character and in the main they're just; but they sometimes go wrong when they imagine their rules are mine. Probably you have not felt it would be a relief to plow through things, without bothering about the marks you left."
"No," said Mordaunt, "I don't think I have felt this."