"Please remember that he is a friend of mine." "He cannot be one of long standing," I was foolish enough to answer.
"For he is not an East Country man, and I never heard of him before." "As a matter of fact," said Isabella, "I met him at a ball in town last week, and he asked permission to call." I gave a short laugh, and Isabella looked at me with calm defiance in her eyes.

It was, of course, no business of mine, which knowledge probably urged me on to further blunders.
Isabella's mental attitude was a puzzle to me.

She was ready enough to supply information respecting Mr.Devar, whose progress towards intimacy had, to say the least of it, been rapid.

But she supplied, as I thought, from a small store.

She alternately allayed and aroused an anxiety which was natural enough in so old a friend, and to a man who had moved among adventurers nearly all his life.