“I don’t believe he has any now,” said the girl.
“I’m very sorry for him then; he’s such an honest man.”
“Pray, did he ask you to talk to me?”
“No, not that. But he told me because he couldn’t help it. We’re old friends, and he was greatly disappointed. He sent me a line asking me to come and see him, and I drove over to Lockleigh the day before he and his sister lunched with us. He was very heavy-hearted; he had just got a letter from you.”
“Did he show you the letter?” asked Isabel with momentary loftiness.
“By no means. But he told me it was a neat refusal. I was very sorry for him,” Ralph repeated.
For some moments Isabel said nothing; then at last, “Do you know how often he had seen me?” she enquired. “Five or six times.”
“That’s to your glory.”
“It’s not for that I say it.”
“What then do you say it for. Not to prove that poor Warburton’s state of mind’s superficial, because I’m pretty sure you don’t think that.”