“My dear child, of course not—do you want to?” This was a marvellous way out.
She said, Yes, but she could not do it without him.
He asked what he had to do with it, and she said, “More than you know,” which he was willing enough to admit!—So far as he could see he had nothing to do with it.
“Much more than you know,” she repeated.
She drew up her feet. They were very pretty slim feet, he discovered. He liked the shoes even, except that they were white. He didn’t really like white shoes. She clasped her hands round her knees. He liked her hands, particularly liked them. They were long and delightfully brown. He didn’t mind brown hands—not a bit—at the seaside.
“Whom do you want to marry?” he asked, feeling a sudden rush of tenderness towards this dark-eyed girl, and a slight resentment towards the man she would marry. This girl had found him both sympathetic and amusing. If Diana thought him amusing she would never tell him so.
“That’s the curious part of the whole thing—I heard from some one this morning.”
“The some one?” said Marcus, with marvellous intuition. He really was sympathetic, he felt the glow of it himself.
“Yes, and he said you were here—”
“Why did he say that?” What business had any one to say Marcus Maitland was anywhere—even if he were? He hated his movements discussed.