"I'm afraid I alarmed dear Miss Cronin."

"How perfectly splendid!" said Miss Van Tuyn.

"She is very fond of you."

"Much fonder of Bourget!"

"I don't think so," he said, with emphasis. "She is so devoted to
you that quite inadvertently I alarmed her. After all, we were--we
were"--nobly he decided to take the dreadful plunge--"we were two
elderly people talking together as elderly people will, I thought quite
freely and frankly, and I ventured--do forgive me--to hint that a great
many men must wish to marry you; young men suited to you, promising men,
men with big futures before them, anxious for a brilliant and beautiful
wife."

"That was very charming and solicitous of you," said Miss Van Tuyn with
a smile. "But I don't know that they do!"

"Do what?" said Braybrooke, almost losing his head, as he saw the
vision in the distance, now cloaked and gloved, rustling in an evident
preparation for something, which might be departure or might on the
other hand be approach.

She observed him with a definite surprise, which she seemed desirous of
showing.

"I was alluding to the promising men," she said.