"The expression of your face. There is certainly something about the position of your lips, your eyes are slightly narrowed, your head is bowed in a suspicious manner, your——"
"Might we not have been exchanging simple confidences?" put in Nick, with a smile.
"Possibly. But confidences are secrets, you know."
The speaker leaned against the railing in front of the two friends and regarded them benignly.
"We were not discussing secrets," said Dashwood, as he threw back his head, though his manner was pleasant enough.
"No? Then you should have been, for all of us have our secrets."
Dashwood shook his head. "You must except me, Mr. Leonard," he said.
"What? A man without a secret? Come, now, Dashwood, you must be joking. I don't assume, of course, that any secret you may have hidden in your breast is of a shady nature, but to say that your mind is an open book, that during your twenty-six years of life—twenty-six or twenty-seven, which is it?"
"Twenty-six."