"You take it in such a way that I've a great mind not to tell you anything more about it."
"I know you have," he said, stretching himself out again; "but you'll do it, all the same. You'd have been awfully disappointed if I had been calm and collected."
"She refused him," she began again, "although she respects him, because she feels that she ought to devote herself to her son. Of course she's very young, still; she was married when she was only nineteen to a man twice her age, and she's not thirty-five yet. I don't think she ever cared much for her husband; and she wants you to find out something about him."
"I never heard of him. I—"
Mrs. March made a "tchck!" that would have recalled the most consequent of men from the most logical and coherent interpretation to the true intent of her words. He perceived his mistake, and said, resolutely: "Well, I won't do it. If she's refused him, that's the end of it; she needn't know anything about him, and she has no right to."
"Now I think differently," said Mrs. March, with an inductive air. "Of course she has to know about him, now." She stopped, and March turned his head and looked expectantly at her. "He said he would not consider her answer final, but would hope to see her again and—She's afraid he may follow her—What are you looking at me so for?"
"Is he coming here?"
"Am I to blame if he is? He said he was going to write to her."
March burst into a laugh. "Well, they haven't been beating about the bush! When I think how Miss Triscoe has been pursuing Burnamy from the first moment she set eyes on him, with the settled belief that she was running from him, and he imagines that he has been boldly following her, without the least hope from her, I can't help admiring the simple directness of these elders."
"And if Kenby wants to talk with you, what will you say?" she cut in eagerly.