I am engaged
to Mr. Crane, and when we told my brother he did not approve of it;
that is all."
Neither Brain nor Fisher exhibited any surprise, but the former
added, quietly:
"Except, I suppose, that he and your brother went off into the wood
to discuss it, where Mr. Crane mislaid his sword, not to mention his
companion."
"And may I ask," inquired Crane, with a certain flicker of mockery
passing over his pallid features, "what I am supposed to have done
with either of them? Let us adopt the cheerful thesis that I am a
murderer; it has yet to be shown that I am a magician. If I ran your
unfortunate friend through the body, what did I do with the body?
Did I have it carried away by seven flying dragons, or was it merely
a trifling matter of turning it into a milk-white hind?"
"It is no occasion for sneering," said the Anglo-Indian judge, with
abrupt authority. "It doesn't make it look better for you that you
can joke about the loss."
Fisher's dreamy, and even dreary, eye was still on the edge of the
wood behind, and he became conscious of masses of dark red, like a
stormy sunset cloud, glowing through the gray network of the thin
trees, and the prince in his cardinal's robes reemerged on to the
pathway. Brain had had half a notion that the prince might have gone
to look for the lost rapier.
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