Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 2.djvu/100

86 them was that your eager descent upon us at that particular moment seemed to present you in the light of an inquirer whom it would be really rude not to gratify. The other was just to see if you would succeed in restraining your glee."

"Then your story isn't true?" Jean asked with a promptitude that betrayed the limits of her circumspection.

"There you are again!" Rose laughed. "Do you know your apprehensions are barely decent? I haven't, however, laid a trap with a bait that's all make-believe. It's perfectly true that Mr. Vidal has again pressed me hard—it's not true that I've yet given him an answer completely final. But as I mean to at the earliest moment, you can say so to whomever you like."

"I can surely leave the saying so to you!" Jean returned. "But I shall be sorry to appear to have treated you with a want of confidence that may give you a complaint to make on the score of my manners—as to which you set me too high an example by the rare perfection of your own. Let me simply let you know, then, to cover every possibility of that sort, that I intend, under no