“Oh, of course I’ll pardon you,” he replied with an air of lofty condescension, “but the fact is, in dealing with a man like you one has to be so mighty particular about his expressions. I ought really to have said that I wormed the little secret out of her. Indeed, to be strictly accurate, she did not tell me, but allowed me to infer, and when I asked if my inference was right she was silent.”
“Ah, just so,” I ejaculated with some irony, which, however, he did not seem to notice, for he went on—
“Now a woman’s conversation may mean a good deal, but her silence means infinitely more. When a woman is silent, depend upon it she is thinking, and when she thinks, there is mischief brewing; a woman can’t be silent without thinking of mischief.”
“You are a little severe—I had almost said unga
