Allan’s face flushed. “Good heavens, Midwinter,” he exclaimed, “who could suspect me of that?”
“Nobody, Allan, who really knows you.”
“The major knows me. The major is the last man in the world to misunderstand me. All I want him to do is to help me (if he can) to speak about a delicate subject to Miss Gwilt, without hurting her feelings. Can anything be simpler between two gentlemen?”
Instead of replying, Midwinter, still speaking as constrainedly as ever, asked a question on his side. “Do you mean to tell Major Milroy,” he said, “what your intentions really are toward Miss Gwilt?”
Allan’s manner altered. He hesitated, and looked confused.
“I have been thinking of that,” he replied; “and I mean to feel my way first, and then tell him or not afterward, as matters turn out?”
A proceeding so cautious as this was too strikingly inconsistent with Allan’s character not to surprise any one who knew him. Midwinter showed his surprise plainly.
“You forget that foolish flirtation of mine with Miss Milroy,” Allan went on, more and more confusedly. “The major may have noticed it, and may have thought I meant—well, what I didn’t mean. It might be rather awkward, mightn’t it, to propose to his face for his governess instead of his daughter?”
He waited for a word of answer, but none came. Midwinter opened his lips to speak, and suddenly checked himself. Allan, uneasy at his silence, doubly uneasy under certain recollections of the major’s daughter which the conversation had called up, rose from the table and shortened the interview a little impatiently.
“Come! come!” he said, “don’t sit there looking unutterable things; don’t make mountains out of mole-hills. You have such an old, old head, Midwinter, on those young shoulders of yours! Let’s have done with all these pros and cons. Do you mean to tell me in plain words that it won’t do to speak to the major?”