"There's no need to speak in that contemptuous tone. I am, and there are few more intrepid men alive than Hugo Carmody. The old Colonel, believe me, is a tough baby. If I ever see him, I shall run like a rabbit, and my biographers may make of it what they will. You, being his daughter and having got accustomed to his ways, probably look on him as something quite ordinary and harmless, but even you will admit that he's got eyebrows which must be seen to be believed."
"Oh, never mind Father's eyebrows. Go on about Johnnie."
"Right ho. Well, then, look here, young Pat," said Hugo, earnestly, "in the interests of the aforesaid John, I want to ask you a favour. I understand he proposed to you that night at the Mustard Spoon."
"Well?"
"And you slipped him the mitten."
"Well?"
"Oh, don't think I'm blaming you," Hugo assured her. "If you don't want him, you don't. Nothing could be fairer than that. But what I'm asking you to do now is to keep clear of the poor chap. If you happen to run into him, that can't be helped, but be a sport and do your best to avoid him. Don't unsettle him. If you come buzzing round, stirring memories of the past and arousing thoughts of Auld Lang Syne and what not, that'll unsettle him. It'll take his mind off his job and ... well ... unsettle him. And, providing he isn't unsettled, I have strong hopes that we may get old John off this season. Do I make myself clear?"
Pat kicked viciously at an inoffensive pebble, whose only fault was that it happened to be within reach at the moment.
"I suppose what you're trying to break to me in your rambling, woollen-headed way is that Johnnie is mooning round that Molloy girl? I met her just now in Bywater's, and she told me she was staying at the Hall."
"I wouldn't call it mooning," said Hugo thoughtfully, speaking like a man who is an expert in these matters and can appraise subtle values. "I wouldn't say it had quite reached the mooning stage yet. But I have hopes. You see, John is a bloke whom Nature intended for a married man. He's a confirmed settler-down, the sort of chap who...."