“He believes there’s something about her, somewhere in time or space, that may make a pretty big mouthful.”
“Let him leave it alone then.”
“How can he if he’s really hit?”—Waterville spoke as from sad experience.
“Ah, my dear fellow, he must settle it himself. He has no right at any rate to put me such a question. There was a moment, just as he was going, when he had it on his tongue’s end. He stood there in the doorway, he couldn’t leave me—he was going to plump out with it. He looked at me straight, and I looked straight at him; we remained that way for almost a minute. Then he decided not, on the whole, to risk it and took himself off.”
Waterville assisted at this passage with intense interest. “And if he had asked you, what would you have said?”
“What do you think?”
“Well, I suppose you’d have said that his question wasn’t fair.”
“That would have been tantamount to admitting the worst.”
“Yes,” Waterville brooded again, “you couldn’t do that. On the other hand if he had put it to you on your honour whether she’s a woman to marry it would have been very awkward.”
“Awkward enough. Luckily he has no business to put things to me on my honour. Moreover, nothing has passed between us to give him the right to ask me any questions about Mrs. Headway. As she’s a great friend of mine he can’t pretend to expect me to give confidential information.”