“I wouldn’t marry him if he were a peer of the realm,” she said indignantly.
“Quite so. But he is an avowed suitor. Now don’t be vexed. Has he never declared his intentions to you?”
“He would never dare. I sing and act a little, at village concerts and dramatic performances, and he has annoyed me at times by an officious pretense that he was deputed by my father to see me home. I came here quite a little girl, so people learnt to use my Christian name. I don’t object to it at all. But I simply hate hearing it on Mr. Elkin’s lips.”
“Exit Fred!” said Winter solemnly. “Next!”
Doris, after a period of calm, was now profoundly uncomfortable. This kind of prying was the last thing she had expected. She had come prepared to defend Grant, but, beyond one exceedingly personal reference, the detective had studiously shut him out of the conversation.
“What am I to say?” she cried. “Do you want a list of all the young men who make sheep’s eyes at me?”
“No. I can get that from the Census Bureau. Come, now, Miss Martin. You know. Has any man in the village led you to suspect, shall we put it? that sometime or other, he might ask you to become his wife?”
Lo, and behold! Doris’s pretty eyes filled with tears. Superintendent Fowler was so pleased at hearing Scotland Yard introducing a parenthetical query into its sentences that he, sitting opposite, was taken aback when Winter said in a fatherly way:
“I’ve been rather clumsy, I’m afraid. But it cannot be helped. I must go blundering on. I’m groping in the dark, you know, but it’s a thousand pities I shall have to tread on your toes.”
“It isn’t that,” sobbed Doris. “I hate to put my thoughts into words. That’s all. There is a man whom I’m—afraid of.”