To
be sure, he knew now that Davenport's fickle one had a father; but so
had most young women. In short, the small connecting facts had no such
significance in his mind, where they were not grouped away from other
facts, as they must have in these pages, where their very presence
together implies inter-relation.
In his reports to Edna, a certain delicacy had made him touch lightly
upon the traces of Davenport's love-affair. He may, indeed, have guessed
that those traces were what she was most desirous to hear of. But a
certain manly allegiance to his sex kept him reticent on that point in
spite of all her questions. He did not even say to what motive Davenport
ascribed the false one's fickleness; nor what was Davenport's present
opinion of her. "He was thrown over by some woman whose name he never
mentions; since then he has steered clear of the sex," was what Larcher
replied to Edna a hundred times, in a hundred different sets of phrases;
and it was all he replied on the subject.
So matters stood until two days after the interview related in the
previous chapter. At the end of that interview, Larcher had said that
for the second day thereafter he was engaged; Hence he had appointed
the third day for his next meeting with Davenport. The engagement for
the second day was, to spend the afternoon with Edna Hill at a
riding-school. Upon arriving at the flat where Edna lived under the mild
protection of her easy-going aunt, he found Miss Kenby included in the
arrangement.
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