“How could I?” replied his cousin. “Don’t get so excited, Mike. By Jove! what a Don Quixote you are still! How could I bring her to book, as you say, without seeming to give credence to her hints? The very thing she would have liked. Of course, my only rôle was to treat what she said with absolute indifference, as an absurd mistake. I could see that my doing so riled her. Besides, you would not have had me let her see that, mistake or no mistake, I took any special interest in Miss—in the person concerned?”
“No. I see what you mean,” said Michael, consideringly. “It would have been very wrong, seeing that you had not quite made up your mind; very wrong for her sake.” And again he eyed his cousin keenly.
Bernard gave a movement of impatience.
“It would have been very disagreeable for myself,” he said. “I wouldn’t allow that woman to think any chatter or warnings of hers had influenced me. I don’t say—candidly to you in confidence—I don’t say but what they did, for I believe I had made up my mind to go through with it.”
“Then, upon my soul,” said Michael, sharply, “I don’t understand you. You—you care for this girl; you love her or are in love with her, and you would let the poisonous tongue of a thorough-going, scheming woman like Mrs Worthing deter you from what you call going through with it, when you know her motive too! By Jove! Bernard, if you are fool enough to play into her hands, and I see you some fine day married to poor little Aline, you need not come to me to complain of your mother-in-law.”
Bernard flushed crimson.
“You are going too far, Michael,” he said. “To begin with, I have no right to impute the motive you do, nor to impugn Mrs Worthing’s truthfulness. It is possible her motives are sincere and disinterested. It is not inconceivable that she may have some friendly feeling for me.”
“It is conceivable that she is clever enough to make you think so,” muttered Michael. Then, after a moment’s silence. “But, after all,” he said, suddenly, “what did she say? All through this conversation you have put off telling me.”
“You never asked distinctly,” said his cousin. “I began by telling you it was vague—vague, and so extraordinary; so—upon the face of it—absurd, that I—I scarcely know how to make you take it seriously.” Michael laughed, but it was somewhat forcedly.
“You are really a good deal of an idiot, Bernard. But go on, the more absurd the better.”