"Then," added Muriel, "you will understand why I haven't mentioned it to my husband——"
"Your husband?" The Austrian was all amazement. "Why should you?"
"Because," said Muriel, compressing her full lips and assuming her full height, "I always tell Jim everything."
If the shadow of a smile passed beneath his military moustache, she could not be sure of it.
"Everything?" said he. "But you have said that this was nothing."
"Exactly, and—don't you see?—that is one of the reasons why I haven't told it. You will—you will please not refer to it to him, Captain von Klausen, because——"
"Refer to it?" Von Klausen squared his shoulders. "To him? Never!"
His assertion was vehement.
"There is no reason why you shouldn't," Muriel replied; "only, as I say, I haven't told him, and the only real reason that I didn't tell him was because to do so I should have to tell him, too, that you had been afraid; and that isn't my secret: it's yours."
The Austrian's boyish face was now very grave.