Hasn't she ever told you? Then it
shows she wants to do you up on toast. You're not an English politician,
are you? You haven't any political secrets that Dolly wants to get at,
have you? Why, she is the greatest girl there is in the whole United
States for finding out just what a man doesn't want to have known. You
know the Secretary of State'--and here Fleming went on to relate a
wonderfully brilliant feat of Dolly's; but the person to whom he was
talking had neither eyes nor ears. He heard nothing and he saw nothing.
'Dear me!' said Fleming, drawing himself up and slapping the other on the
back, 'you look perfectly dumfounded. I suppose I oughtn't to have given
Dolly away like this; but she has pretended all along that she didn't
know me, and so I've got even with her. You take my advice, and anything
you don't want to see in print, don't tell Miss Brewster, that's all.
Have a cigar?'
'No, thank you,' replied the other mechanically.
'Better come in and have a drink.'
'No, thank you.'
'Well, so long. I'll see you later.'
'It can't be true--it can't be true!' Wentworth repeated to himself in
deep consternation, but still an inward misgiving warned him that, after
all, it might be true. With his hands clasped behind him he walked up and
down, trying to collect himself--trying to remember what he had told and
what he had not. As he walked along, heeding nobody, a sweet voice from
one of the chairs thrilled him, and he paused.
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