“That shot told. He threw his head back, like a horse taking the bit between his teeth. It was plain that he had formed a resolution of some sort. By the way, Jack, I could never understand how so transparent a man as the Don, showing his inmost feelings with every glance of his eye, and every movement of his features; with a face which was a barometer of his slightest emotions, could ever have kept a secret. Here is the S. T., on the other hand. Whisper a secret into his ear, and it is like dropping a stone into an artesian well. It is the last you ever hear of it. There may be a subterranean splash, but you never see it. But the Don’s face always reminded me of a lake that the merest pebble causes to ripple from shore to shore.
“Well, the reconnoissance was a perfect success, and all that was left, as I thought, was to retire under cover of a rattling skirmish fire.[[1]] Very naturally, I did not suspect that my position was mined. But it was; and I trod on the percussion fuse.
“‘Well,’ said I, ‘I don’t suppose you would ever get tired of hearing me talk about Mary, but you have never heard the mother’s “warning voice” yet, and you know you came to the Fateful Argo to hear that.’
“‘That’s true! Would you mind if I lit a cigar? Thanks!’ And, opening my parasol, he struck a light behind it, and began puffing away, with his head thrown back, and nursing his knee, as before; the picture of serene contentment. His face was calm as the placid little lake of which I spoke just now, and he looked as though, the absorbing question in his mind being set at rest, he was at my service, to be amused and entertained.
“‘A man of your wide experience, Mr. Don,’ said I, beginning the skirmishing, ‘must have remarked the fact that girls will talk.’
“‘True, very true!’ And with dreamy, half-smiling, uplifted eyes, he thrust his cigar into the other corner of his mouth, as though by anticipation he rolled under his tongue some morsel of my nonsense. ‘Go on, laughter-compelling siren!’
“‘Again, you cannot fail to have observed that girls, being wound up to talk, by nature, must needs talk about one another or—the rest of mankind. As we are not philosophers, could it be otherwise?’
“‘Impossible!’ said he, rocking gently to and fro. ‘Proceed, enchantress!’
“‘Well, you being included among the rest of mankind—’
“‘You have occasionally honored me? And what did you say about me?’