THE PAPERS
was quite the attitude now of tormenting him a little. "If you know something about him which she doesn't, and also which I don't, she knows something about him—as I do too—which you don't."
"Surely: when it's exactly what I'm trying to get out of you. Are you afraid I'll sell it?"
But even this taunt, which she took moreover at its worth, didn't move her. "You definitely then won't tell me?"
"You mean that if I will you'll tell me?"
She thought again. "Well—yes. But on that condition alone."
"Then you're safe," said Howard Bight. " I can't, really, my dear, tell you. Besides, if it's to come out———!"
"I'll wait in that case till it does. But I must warn you," she added, "that my facts won't come out."
He considered. "Why not, since the rush at her is probably even now being made? Why not, if she receives others?"
Well, Maud could think too. "She'll receive them, but they won't receive her. Others are like your people—dunderheads. Others won't understand, won't count, won't exist." And she moved to the door. "There are no others." Opening the door, she had reached the street with it, even while he replied, overtaking her, that there were certainly none such as herself; but they had scarce passed out before her last remark was, to their somewhat disconcerted sense, sharply enough refuted. There was still the other they had forgotten, and that neglected quantity, plainly in search of them and happy in his instinct of the chase, now stayed their steps in the form of Mortimer Marshal.
421
