"I think," she said, "I can answer for Mr. Courthorne's silence.
Still, when I have an opportunity, I am going to lecture you."
Winston turned with a twinkle he could not quite repress in his eyes,
and with a flutter of her dress the girl whisked away.
"I'm afraid this makes me an accessory, but I can only neglect my
manifest duty, which would be to warn her mother," said Maud Barrington.
"Is it a duty?" asked Winston, feeling that the further he drifted away
from the previous topic the better it would be for him.
"Some people would fancy so," said his companion, "Lily will have a
good deal of money, by and by, and she is very young. Atterly has
nothing but an unprofitable farm; but he is an honest lad, and I know
she is very fond of him."
"And would that count against the dollars?"
Maud Barrington laughed a little. "Yes," she said quietly. "I think
it would if the girl is wise. Even now such things do happen, but I
fancy it is time I went back again."
She moved away, but Winston stayed where he was until the lad came in
with a cigar in his hand.
"Hallo, Courthorne!" he said. "Did you notice anybody pass the window
a little while ago?"
"You are the first to come in through it," said Winston dryly. "The
kind of things you wear admit of climbing."
The lad glanced at him with a trace of embarrassment.
"I don't quite understand you, but I meant a man," he said. "He was
walking curiously, as if he was half-asleep, but he slipped round the
corner of the building and I lost him.
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