"The letter may contain the news which I most want to hear."
I checked him there. "I am not sure of that," I answered. "I don't know what it is that you most want to hear."
I said those words with a purpose. What was the news he was longing for? In spite of all that he had told me, my instincts answered: News that Lucilla is still a single woman. My object in speaking as I had just spoken, was to tempt him into a reply which might confirm me in this opinion. He evaded the reply. Was that confirmation in itself? Yes—as I think!
"Will you tell me what there is in the letter?" he asked—passing, as you see, entirely over what I had just said to him.
"Yes—if you wish it," I answered: not over well pleased with his want of confidence in me.
"No matter what the letter contains?" he went on, evidently doubting me.
I said Yes, again—that one word, and no more.
"I suppose it would be asking too much," he persisted, "to ask you to let me read the letter myself?"
My temper, as you are well aware by this time, is not the temper of a saint. I drew my arm smartly out of his arm; and I surveyed him with, what poor Pratolungo used to call, "my Roman look."
"Mr. Oscar Dubourg! say, in plain words, that you distrust me."