"Dear me, to be sure you would be interested in Mary. You would know a good deal about her. Nine years—it is a long time."
If he had been the most consummate plotter he could not better have paved the way for the suggestion he was about to make.
"Put off your return to Hazels till Saturday morning. I want to take you and Miss Gray into the country for a day on Thursday."
"Indeed, young man! And wait for the Saturday crowd of holiday-makers! A nice figure I should be struggling among them."
"I will be at Victoria to see you off."
"Oh, you needn't do that." Mrs. Morres turned about with the inconsequence of her sex. "I've brought one of the maids up with me. She will take care of me better than most men. She is alarming, this good Susan, to the people who don't know her. But I thought you were going abroad?"
"So I am. Saturday morning will do me very well."
"How did you know I was in town? No one is supposed to. All the blinds are down in front and will be till her Ladyship returns."
"Miss Gray told me. I saw her yesterday."
She looked at him sharply. His honest, plain face reassured her. A friendship of nine years, too. What trouble could there possibly arise after a friendship of nine years? Mary must know that he was all but engaged to his cousin.