"As it happens, I haven't seen a paper, and, as for listening, if you don't know I wouldn't do a thing like that it's no use my saying so."
"Then who was your informant?"
"That's my business. There is a little bird which sometimes whispers in my ear. Did you come back in the Pullman?"
He replied to her question with another.
"What's the matter with you, Mabel?"
"What should be? Nothing's the matter; I was only thinking that if you did, your uncle must have been in the train just behind you. If you'd have known what he was doing you'd have felt funny. Still, if you did come by the Pullman, considering that it's due at Victoria at ten, and yesterday was quite punctual, since you had promised to be in early, and knew that I was all alone in the house, I think you might have been back before midnight."
He eyed the girl. She was pretty, in a pink-and-white sort of way; fonder of him than was good for her. He had never seen her in this shrewish mood before.
"My dear Mabel, if I could have got back earlier I would have done so; but I couldn't. I was the sufferer, not you."
"I dare say! I suppose that Miss Patterson was your cousin. Are you going to marry her?"
"Really! you jump about! How do you suppose a fellow in my position can tell whom he's going to marry--on twopence a year?"