If she meant business,
and business only, they ought to have met as two men would have met, but
he knew that they had not done so, and she must have known it. All that
was plain sailing enough, but beyond this lay a sea of conjecture in
which he found himself without helm or compass. Why, should she have
acted a fib about his being an actor, and why, after the end, should she
have added an end, in which she returned to own that she had been
fibbing? For that was what it came to; and though Verrian tasted a
delicious pleasure in the womanish feat by which she overcame her
womanishness, he could not puzzle out her motive. He was not sure that
he wished to puzzle it out. To remain with illimitable guesses at his
choice was more agreeable, for the present at least, and he was not aware
of having lapsed from them when he woke so late as to be one of the
breakfasters whose plates were kept for them after the others were gone.
XVI.
It was the first time that Verrian had come down late, and it was his
novel experience to find himself in charge of Mrs. Stager at breakfast,
instead of the butler and the butler's man, who had hitherto served him
at the earlier hour. There were others, somewhat remote from him, at
table, who were ending when he was beginning, and when they had joked
themselves out of the room and away from Mrs.
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