"Still, with so many awful examples," suggested Bridget, "you will naturally be cautious. For your own part, you would not put the momentous question to any woman unless you had the most perfect confidence——"
"Oh, I have!" he replied, more enthusiastically than she had ever heard him speak. "Being human, I suppose I am bound to assume there must be blemishes about her somewhere—I don't know where! But," Jimmy continued, "of one thing I am as certain as a man can be of anything in this world."
"What is that?" faltered Bridget.
"Her utter incapability of the remotest shadow of deception. At least I know that when the time comes to put my fate to the touch, she will answer with absolute honesty. If she loves me I shall be the most fortunate beggar under the sun, and if unhappily she doesn't, she will say so sans phrase."
"You put a premium on candour!" she suggested.
"Why, yes," he answered. "Whatever I may be I am not very intolerant, but double dealing is the one thing I think I might find it impossible to forgive. It isn't the spoken lie that's the worst."
"What is?" asked Bridget.
"The abominable whitewash we daub over our lives. The eternal pretence to be something we are not. The—— But," Jimmy broke off, with a laugh, "you must always pull me up when I show signs of beginning to preach!"
As he was speaking, the door opened and Miller in his quiet way announced—
"Colonel Faversham."