“And what a cheat he must think Father Maloney!” said John grimly. “He’ll believe we were all laughing at him in our sleeves.”
“You needn’t rub it in,” groaned Elizabeth. “These kind of horrid little contretemps make one feel guiltier and more remorseful than quite a good-sized venial sin. You needn’t tell me I’ve no business to feel like that. Of course I haven’t. But kindly remember it’s only in my feelings and not in my reason, I’m experiencing the sensation. What can I do? Tell him I was only joking?”
“He’ll not believe you,” John assured her, “though certainly your remark was, I trust, not intended to be taken in deadly earnest. Perhaps,” continued John hopefully, “it may open his eyes a little more to his unsuitability for the position of head of Delancey Castle.”
“It may,” said Elizabeth succinctly, “but all the same I wish I hadn’t lent a hand to the operation. It’s nearly as bad as forcing open the eyes of a two-days-old kitten. I’d far sooner have left the business to time.”
“Time,” remarked John gloomily, “is an old cheat. You never know what he will be up to. He has a way of contracting hours into briefest seconds when you want their full value, and of expanding them into an eternity when you’ve no use for them. Oh! he’s a wily beggar is Time.”
Elizabeth laughed.
“What is it?” she asked. “Hadn’t you better make a clean breast of it?”
“Of what?” demanded John evasively.
“The exact manner of Time’s trickery,” responded Elizabeth. “Or anything else you please. Of course I know there’s something on your mind.”
“You profess to be a reader of minds?”