She
couldn't imagine any connection in which . . . Why should they?
As her tone had become interrogatory I assented. "To be sure. There's
no reason whatever--" thinking to myself that they would be more likely
indeed to keep quiet about it. They had other things to talk of. And
then remembering little Fyne stuck upstairs for an unconscionable time,
enough to blurt out everything he ever knew in his life, I reflected that
he would assume naturally that Captain Anthony had nothing to learn from
him about Flora de Barral. It had been up to now my assumption too. I
saw my mistake. The sincerest of women will make no unnecessary
confidences to a man. And this is as it should be.
"No--no!" I said reassuringly. "It's most unlikely. Are you much
concerned?"
"Well, you see, when I came down," she said again in that precise demure
tone, "when I came down--into the garden Captain Anthony misunderstood--"
"Of course he would. Men are so conceited," I said.
I saw it well enough that he must have thought she had come down to him.
What else could he have thought? And then he had been "gentleness
itself.
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