He was fond of old Mr.
Saffron; he felt a responsibility for him, felt it, indeed, keenly. Or
was he, under all that seeming openness, a consummate hypocrite? Did he
value Mr. Saffron only as a milk cow, the doting giver of a large
salary? Was his only desire to humor him, keep him in good health and
temper, and use him to his own profit? A puzzling man, but, at all
events, cutting a poor figure beside Alec Naylor, about whom there could
circle no clouds of doubt. Doctor Mary's learning and gravity did not
prevent her from drawing a very heroic and rather romantic figure of
Captain Alec--notwithstanding that she sometimes found him rather hard
to talk to.
She felt Cynthia's arm steal around her waist, and Cynthia said softly,
"I did enjoy my afternoon. Can we go again soon, Mary?"
Mary glanced at her. Cynthia laughed and blushed. "Isn't he splendid?"
Cynthia murmured. "But I don't like Mr. Beaumaroy, do you?"
"I say yes to the first question, but I'm not quite ready to answer the
second," said Mary with a laugh.
Three days later, on Christmas Eve, one whom Jeanne, who caught sight of
him in the hall, described as being all there was possible of ugliness,
delivered (with a request for an immediate answer) the following note for
Mary Arkroyd:
DEAR DR.
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