Anthony Hope

“ Taylor shook his head.
“Such a sweet old place! But, of course, rather dull for a young man, with nobody but his mother and just one or two slow country neighbors.”
“Oh, a run ’ll do him good.”
“Yes; he was quite moped;” and Mrs. Marland glanced at her companion. She wanted only a very little encouragement to impart her suspicions to him. It must, in justice to Mrs. Marland, be remembered that she had always found the simplest explanation of Charlie’s devotion to the Pool hard to accept, and the most elaborate demonstration of how a Canadian canoe may be upset unconvincing. ”

“ Marland’s case or not—whether, that is, it is inconceivable that a young man should go to any place fourteen evenings running, and upset a friend of his youth out of a canoe, except there be a lady involved, is perhaps doubtful; but it was more than enough to show Mr. Sigismund Taylor that the confession he had listened to was based upon fact, and that Charlie Merceron was the other party to those stolen interviews, into whose exact degree of heinousness he was now inquiring. ”

“ Taylor to feel that he was in an awkward position.
“Now,” asked Mrs. Marland, “candidly, Mr. Taylor, can you suppose anything else than that our friend Charlie was carrying on a very pronounced flirtation with this dressmaker?”
“Dressmaker?”
“Her friend was, and I believe she was too. Something of the kind, anyhow.”
“You—you never saw the—the other person?”
“No; she kept out of the way. That looks bad, doesn’t it? No doubt she was a tawdry vulgar creature. But a man never notices that!” ”