This was meant for a stinger, and I felt the bite of it.
"You do me too much honor. Wiggins is not a man to throw around his confidences."
"And I rather fancy that his love-affairs in particular are locked in his bosom."
Jewett was a master of the art of suggestion; he took an unnecessarily long time to light a cigar so that his words might sink deep into my consciousness.
"Saw her once last spring. Got a sight draft from the Bank of Eros. Followed her across the multitudinous sea. Bang!"
"But Wiggy has n't been abroad. Wiggy was on his Dakota ranch all summer. He's all tanned from the sun, just as he is every fall," I persisted.
"Wrote you from out there, did he? Sent you picture-postals showing him herding his cattle, or whatever the beasts are? Kept in touch with you all the time, did he? I tell you his fine color is due to Switzerland, not Dakota."
"Wiggins is n't a letter-writer, nor the sort of person who wants to paper your house with picture-postals. His not writing does n't mean that he was n't on his ranch," I replied, annoyed by Jewett's manner.
"Never dropped you before, though, I wager," he chirruped. "I tell you he saw Miss Cecilia Hollister at the Asolando tea-shop: just a glimpse; but almost immediately he went abroad in pursuit of her. The chevalier—that's her aunt Octavia—was along and another niece. My sister saw the bunch of them in Geneva, where the chevalier was breaking records. A whole troop of suitors followed them everywhere. My sister knows the girl—Cecilia—and she's known Wiggy all her life. She's just home and told me about it last night. She thinks the chevalier has some absurd scheme for marrying off the girl. It's all very queer, our Wiggy being mixed up in it."
"Don't be absurd, Jewett. There's nothing unusual in a man being in love; that's one fashion that does n't change much. I venture to say that Wiggins will prove a formidable suitor. Wiggins is a gentleman, and the girl would be lucky to get him."