You don't meet me this morning as
cordially as you met me yesterday. There is something unsettled in your
face. I distrust that housekeeper of yours, sir! Has she been presuming
on your forbearance? Has she been trying to poison your mind against me
or my niece?"
If Noel Vanstone had obeyed Mrs. Lecount's injunctions, and had kept her
little morsel of note-paper folded in his pocket until the time came to
use it, Captain Wragge's designedly blunt appeal might not have found
him unprepared with an answer. But curiosity had got the better of
him; he had opened the note at night, and again in the morning; it had
seriously perplexed and startled him; and it had left his mind far too
disturbed to allow him the possession of his ordinary resources. He
hesitated; and his answer, when he succeeded in making it, began with a
prevarication.
Captain Wragge stopped him before he had got beyond his first sentence.
"Pardon me, sir," said the captain, in his loftiest manner. "If you have
secrets to keep, you have only to say so, and I have done. I intrude on
no man's secrets. At the same time, Mr. Vanstone, you must allow me to
recall to your memory that I met you yesterday without any reserves on
my side.
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