Silence! Ned Talbot screwed up his lips and shook his head with determined obstinacy. The girls stared at him in silence for a good two minutes. Then Maud spoke again.
“Do you decline to say anything but ‘Humph’ on the subject, Ned?”
“Absolutely!”
“How very interesting!” Nan clasped her hands in delight. “How mysterious! How gloomy! How frightfully suspicious! I’m sure there’s something very dreadful about him, and in that case he will be even more interesting than the girls.”
“Nan!”
“I can’t help it. We know so many estimable people that it would be delightful to meet somebody bloodthirsty, for a change. Everything in Waybourne is so painfully commonplace that we are simply spoiling for a mystery, as the Americans would say. Now, Mr Talbot won’t commit himself to a definite charge, but his silence is more impressive than words. I’m sure there’s a mystery: something too gruesome and terrible to be divulged.”
“You leap to conclusions, Nan. Perhaps I had better state at once that there is nothing at all mysterious about the man I mentioned—nothing of the kind, I assure you.”
“Nor bloodthirsty?”
“Nor in the faintest shadow of a degree bloodthirsty.”
“Nor thrilling, nor gloomy, nor terrible?”