“Are you then in Miss Lind’s confidence?  Did she ask you to tell me this?”

“What do you mean, Mr. Douglas?”

“I am quite innocent of any desire to shock or offend you, Mrs. Leith Fairfax.  Does your question imply a negative?”

“Most certainly.  Marian ask me to tell! you must be dreaming.  Do you think, even if Marian were capable of making an advance, that I would consent to act as a go-between?  Really, Mr. Douglas!”

“I confess I do not understand these matters; and you must bear with my ineptitude.  If Miss Lind entertains any sentiment for me but one of mistrust and aversion, her behavior is singularly misleading.”

“Mistrust!  Aversion!  I tell you she is in love with you.”

“But you have not, you admit, her authority for saying so, whereas I have her authority for the contrary.”

“You do not understand girls.  You are mistaken.”

“Possibly; but you must pardon me if I hesitate to set aside my own judgment in deference to your low estimate of it.”

“Very well,” said Mrs. Fairfax, her patience yielding a little to his persistent stiffness:  “be it so.  Many men would be glad to beg what you will not be bribed to accept.”

“No doubt.  I trust that when they so humble themselves they may not encounter a flippant repulse.”

“If they do, it will spring from her unmerited regard for you.”

He bowed slightly, and turned away, arranging his gloves as if about to rise.

“Pray what is that large picture which is skied over there to the right?” said Mrs. Fairfax, after a pause, during which she had feigned to examine her catalogue.  “I cannot see the number at this distance.”

“Do you defend her conduct on the ground of that senseless and cruel caprice which your sex seem to consider becoming to them; or has she changed her mind in my absence?”

“Oh! you are talking of Marian.  I do not know what you have to complain of in her conduct.  Mind, she has never breathed a word to me on the subject.  I am quite ignorant of the details of your difference with her.  But she has confessed to me that she is very sorry for what passed—­I am abusing her confidence by telling you so—­and I am a woman, with eyes and brains, and know what the poor girl feels well enough.  I will tell you nothing more:  I have no right to; and Marian would be indignant if she knew how much I have said already.  But I know what I should do were I in your place.”

“Expose myself to another refusal, perhaps?”

Mrs. Fairfax, learning now for the first time that he had actually proposed to Marian, looked at him for some moments in silence with a smile which was assumed to cover her surprise.  He thought it expressed incredulity at the idea of his being refused again.

“Are you sure?” he began, speaking courteously to her for the first time.  “May I rely upon the accuracy of your impressions on this subject?  I know you are incapable of trifling in a matter which might expose me to humiliation; but can you give me any guarantee—­any—­”