"Of which?" I fenced, not knowing what else to say to this surprising and disconcerting person. "You seem to know a good deal about people's families, Mr. Burke." This I thought was a good way of carrying the war into the enemy's own country, "or to say you do."
I added this with great emphasis. I meant him to realise that I saw through him. That I'd guessed it was all pure romancing what he had been murmuring yesterday to my unsuspecting little mistress about his friendship with her uncle.
That would astonish this young fortune-hunter, thought I. That would leave him without a word to say for himself. And then he'd leave me. He'd turn and go, foiled. And even if he persisted in his attentions to the dazzled Miss Million, he would remain in a very wholesome state of terror of Miss Million's maid. This was what I foresaw happening in a flash. Picture my astonishment, therefore, at what did happen.
The young man took me up without a quiver.
"Ah, you mean that affecting little yarn about old man Million, in Chicago, don't you?" he said pleasantly. "Very touching, you'll agree, the way I'd cling to his bedside and put up with his flares of temper, the dear old (Nature's) gentleman----"
I would have given yet another quarter's salary not to have done what I did at this moment. I laughed.
That laugh escaped me--I don't know how. How awful! There I stood in the gallery, with only a sort of custodian and a couple of art-students about, laughing up at this well-dressed, showy, unprincipled Irishman as if we were quite friends! I who disapproved of him so utterly! I who mean to do all in my power to keep him and Million's money apart!
He said: "Didn't I know you had a sense of humour? Let us continue this very interesting conversation among the Polar landscapes downstairs. That's what I came in here to see. We'll sit and admire the groups of penguins among the icebergs while we talk."
"No; I don't think we will," said I. I didn't mean to do anything this young man meant me to. I wasn't Million, to be hypnotised by his looks and his clothes and his honeyed Irish voice, forsooth. "I don't care to see those photographs. Not a bit like the Pole, probably. I am not coming down, Mr. Burke."