"Thanks tremendously for coming in to cheer me up," he said quickly. "You see, I've dispensed with Ostrog for the evening, to prevent further comparison between us. D'you mind telling me why you didn't let me know this morning that, if I wrote a book, you'd work for me?"
Stella flushed, and let her jade comb sink beneath its level.
"If you didn't want to write the book," she said, "why should you want a secretary?"
"It didn't occur to you, I suppose," Sir Julian asked, "that if I wanted the secretary, I might wish to write the book?"
"What has Lady Verny said to you?" Stella demanded, lifting her head suddenly, and looking straight across at him.
"Nothing that need make you at all fierce," Julian replied, with amusement. "She said you were going back to the town hall next week, and I said I thought it was a pity. You don't seem to me in the least fitted for a town hall. I've no doubt you can do incredible things with drains, but I fear I have a selfish preference for your playing chess with me. My mother added that it was my fault; you were prepared, if I wished to write a book, to see me through it."
"Yes," said Stella, defensively, "I was prepared, if I thought you wanted it."
"I suppose you and my mother thought it would be good for me, didn't you?" asked Julian, suavely. "I have an idea that you had concocted a treacherous underground plot."
"We—I—well, if you'd liked it, it might have been good for you," Stella admitted.
"Most immoral," said Julian, dryly, "to try to do good to me behind my back, wasn't it? You see, I dislike being done good to; I happen very particularly to dislike it, and above all things I dislike it being done without my knowledge."