“I am not after anything. I want you to go round to all the hotels and see if there is not some young man you know at one of them. There surely must be.”
“Would one young man be enough?”
“If he were attentive enough, he would be. One young man is as good as a thousand if the girl is the right kind.”
“But you have just been implying that Miss Gage is cold and selfish and greedy. Shall I go round exploring hotel registers for a victim to such a divinity as that?”
“No; you needn’t go till I have had a talk with her. I am not sure she is worth it; I am not sure that I want to do a single thing for her.”
VII
The next day, after another forenoon’s shopping with her friends, Mrs. March announced: “Well, now, it has all come out, Basil, and I wonder you didn’t get the secret at once from your Mr. Deering. Have you been supposing that Miss Gage was a poor girl whom the Deerings had done the favour of bringing with them?”
“Why, what of it?” I asked provisionally.
“She is very well off. Her father is not only the president, as they call it, of the village, but he’s the president of the bank.”
“Yes; I told you that Deering told me so—”