It was like his affectation! "Oh, dear, no," said Marie, with unmistakable truthfulness, "HE did not say anything.

But," with sudden inconsistent aggression, "is THAT the way you speak to Kitty of her uncle ?" Really he didn't know--he was joking only, and he was afraid he must just now ask her to excuse him.

He had received letters that made it possible that he might be called suddenly to New York at any moment.
Marie stared.

It was evident that he had proposed to Kitty and been rejected! But she was no nearer her discovery.
Nor was there the least revelation in the calm, half-bored, yet good-humored presence of the wicked uncle at dinner.

So indifferent did he seem, not only to his own villainy but even to the loss it had entailed, that she had a wild impulse to take the ring from her pocket and display it on her own finger before him then and there.