"Oh, I don't like the way you say that! I don't see how you can be so suspicious of such a patently well-meaning old dear. And yet—"
"Well, then, tell me what he said to you and convert me."
"I suppose I must—I have had it on my mind a little, and you have a right to know. Yet I don't want to at all! For I must say it seems just a little to—to support your view. Well, then," she said, some perplexity showing beneath her smile, "it happened about eleven o'clock this morning as I was going down the street to see Elsie Marne—never dreaming of mysteries. I met Mr. Higginson walking towards our house, and we stopped, so I thought, for a friendly word. For he and I made friends last night. Oh, you have a right to think I am too free, too easy, in the way I—I make friends with strangers, and yet really this—is not like me at all. And there is something very winning about this old man. Well, he asked me point-blank—begged me—not to come to your lunch-party to-day. What have you to say to that?"
He continued to look at her as from a distance, not answering her little laugh. Behind the grave mask of his face he cursed himself heartily for his self-absorption of the morning, which had led him entirely to lose sight of Mr. Higginson's activities last night. He had fully meant to search out that "winning" old man on his excursion to the town, but in his engrossment over the more important duty of the day, the matter had dropped completely from his mind. That the old spy had somehow ferreted out their secret was now too plain to admit a doubt. But what conceivable use did he mean to make of it? To interfere with the Cypriani's homegoing was beyond his power now. Did it better suit his mysterious purpose to hold back until the thing was done, in order to raise the dogs of scandal afterwards?…
For the moment his mind attacked the problem with curiously little spirit; but one thing at least was instantly clear. He must return to Hunston to-night, by the first train after his arrival in New York, find Higginson and call him to his well-earned reckoning. Meantime … here was this girl, this daughter of Uncle Elbert, whom the old sneak had for the second time failed to bend to his mean uses….
"But what reason," he said mechanically, "did he give for his rather unusual request?"
"He wouldn't give any! That's what makes it all so ridiculous—don't you see? Naturally I asked, but he only said in his nervous apologetic way that he wasn't at liberty to tell, but that after last night I ought to consider whether you—your surroundings were likely to be quite safe. I said: 'But oughtn't you to give me some idea and, if there is any danger, warn Mr. Varney and Mr. Maginnis? You can't mean that there is another plot, involving the yacht this time—the likelihood of a naval battle on the Hudson?' And then he wrung his hands and said that he couldn't tell me what he meant, but that I'd certainly regret it if I came. There! Oh, I know he thought he was doing somebody a kindness—you and me both, I believe! And yet—that was just a little creepy, wasn't it?"
He made no answer to this; hardly heard what she said. Mr. Higginson, his works and ways, had once more slipped wholly from his mind. Something in the look of her face, its young trustfulness, its utter lack of suspicion, had already laid paralyzing hold upon him. Now a new thought possessed him; and all at once his breast was in a tumult.
"And yet," he said, with sudden fierce exultation, "you came!"
She colored slightly under his look and tone and, to cover it, gave a light laugh.