Perhaps I am not careful enough.' She ended her speech in a tone of self-reproach, which had its effect; for her father was roused by it to expostulate.
'My dear,' he said, 'I never hinted that I had an objection to him.

You are always twisting people's words and imputing wrong meanings to them.' Mallinson fancied that he detected a note of something more than mere remonstrance in Mr.Le Mesurier's voice, a consciousness of some thought in his daughter's mind which he would not openly acknowledge her to possess.

The perception quickened Mallinson's conjecture into a positive conviction.

There was evidently some fact about Drake, some incident perhaps in his life which brought him into relations with the Le Mesuriers,--relations ignored by Drake, but known by Mr.Le Mesurier and suspected by Clarice.

Was this fact to Drake's advantage or discredit?
The father's manner indicated rather the latter; but Mallinson put that aside.