"No, I don't." Agatha's brevity implied distaste for the subject.
"Well, I do. A man's chance interest in a pretty girl may be perfectly innocent and unobjectionable, but you can't compare it with what one feels for the woman who has saved one's life."
"I told you that she wanted to be left alone. I told you that it would be kinder."
"Wait, please." Under the deference of his manner, she perceived a resolution that was adamant. "I've told you only one of the secrets that I have kept from you. Here's the other. When I was in town I saw Warren and we laid plans for taking Hephzibah's case in hand, regular uplift proposition, don't you know. Warren was to see her and arrange matters. We had everything settled. We had a governess selected and had decided on a little sea-side place for them to stay until she was presentable. Warren was going to ask a girl he knows to buy her a suitable outfit."
"I don't wonder you've been blue," Agatha said in tones of soft reproach. "Planning all this out and not a word to me."
To her surprise he blushed high. "No," he said after a moment, "I've been down in the depths, God knows, but not for that reason. I thought—well, you seemed to feel so strongly on the subject of not interfering with Hephzibah, that I didn't want to bother you."
"And now you do? Is that why you're telling me about it?"
"I'm telling you because I want your help." He set his jaw grimly as he faced her. "I left Warren to engineer the thing and he's bungled it."
"It wasn't his fault." Agatha evinced a commendable eagerness not to be unjust to the absent. "When Hephzibah has made up her mind, trying to change it is like going against a stone wall."