certainly don't.'

Dorcas smiled bitterly.

'Mystery already--mystery from the first. _I_ am to know nothing of your
secrets. You confer and consult in my house--you debate and decide upon
matters most nearly concerning, for aught I know, my interests and my
happiness--certainly deeply affecting you, and therefore which I have a
_right_ to know; and my entering the room is the signal for silence--a
guilty silence--for departure and for equivocation. Stanley, you are
isolating me. Beware--I may entrench myself in that isolation. You are
choosing your confidant, and excluding me; rest assured you shall have no
confidence of mine while you do so.'

Stanley Lake looked at her with a gaze at once peevish and inquisitive.

'You take a wonderfully serious view of Rachel's nonsense.'

'I do.'

'Certainly, you women have a marvellous talent for making mountains of
molehills--you and Radie are adepts in the art. Never was a poor devil so
lectured about nothing as I between you. Come now, Dorkie, be a good
girl--you must not look so vexed.'

'I'm not vexed.'

'What then?'

'I'm only _thinking_.'