"And what did Owen say?"
"Nothing at first; but presently he brought out very quietly: 'I spent all last night in the confounded place.' We both stared and cried out at this and I asked him what he had seen there. He said he had seen nothing, and Miss Julian replied that he ought to tell his story better than that—he ought to make something good of it. 'It's not a story—it's a simple fact,' said he; on which she jeered at him and wanted to know why, if he had done it, he hadn't told her in the morning, since he knew what she thought of him. 'I know, but I don't care,' said Wingrave. This made her angry, and she asked him quite seriously whether he would care if he should know she believed him to be trying to deceive us."
"Ah, what a brute!" cried Spencer Coyle.
"She's a most extraordinary girl—I don't know what she's up to."
"Extraordinary indeed—to be romping and bandying words at that hour of the night with fast young men!"
Young Lechmere reflected a moment. "I mean because I think she likes him."
Spencer Coyle was so struck with this unwonted symptom of subtlety that he flashed out: "And do you think he likes her?"
But his interlocutor only replied with a puzzled sigh and a plaintive "I don't know—I give it up!—I'm sure he did see something or hear something," young Lechmere added.
"In that ridiculous place? What makes you sure?"
"I don't know—he looks as if he had. He behaves as if he had."