Colonel Lane and Dan Webster were in the studio of the latter, enjoying an after-dinner cigar. Isabel was correcting school-books in the dining-room under difficulties, but she had promised to go out to the studio when her work was finished.
Colonel Lane sipped his whisky meditatively between his puffs, and Dan saw clearly that he had something to say, which he considered important, and was seeking for words to express himself.
At last the Colonel spoke: “I am a little uneasy about Phyllis, Webster. Mrs. Barrimore wrote me that she was piqued and not well. Did you notice anything?”
Dan’s eyes smiled out of an immovable countenance. He knocked the ash off his cigar before replying.
Then he said, rather unexpectedly: “I think Miss Lane looked a little—cross about something. That was all I noticed.”
“Cross, was she?” jerked out the Colonel. “Well, I know that symptom. It means that she imagines herself in love again. Have you an idea who it is this time?”
Dan opened his eyes wide. Really the Colonel had more penetration than he had given him credit for.
Colonel Lane went on without waiting for a reply: “Phyllis has been in and out of love so much that I have been kept in a ferment. It would be a comfort to get her safely married. Young Langridge—you never met him, I think?—young Langridge would have kept a firm hand on her; but she wouldn’t marry him, though she had, I must own, led him on shamefully if she meant to refuse him. I personally preferred young Arbuthnot, but he would have yielded to Phyllis in everything, and Phyllis would have given him trouble. You see, Webster, when a girl is continually falling in love with a fresh man, it does not always end when she marries. If I had believed that Phyllis would have kept in love with Arbuthnot, I would have consented to that match. I was right in refusing, for now there is someone else. Who is it, Webster? Not you, I know, for I hear that she treated you with coldness.”
Dan laughed boyishly.
“No, Colonel. It certainly was not I.” he said. “But can’t you guess?”