“I promise myself on another occasion, sir,” said Mr. Skinner, with more warmth, “the privilege of discussing these topics with you at length. I do not deny that I am myself, to-day, somewhat preoccupied, and lacking in the power of intellectual concentration. Another occasion, I trust, will find me better fitted to bestow upon these subjects the alertness of comprehension and clarity of judgment which their importance demands. At the moment, I confess my mind is burdened with another matter.”
“O, papa--you haven’t gone and lost your letter of credit!” The girl intervened with accents of alarm.
The old gentleman shook his head, and smiled in a dubious fashion. “No,” he replied, hesitatingly, “it is merely that I--I have been enjoined to secrecy about a very curious and interesting revelation which has been made to me, and concealment is profoundly alien to my nature. The necessity for maintaining a mysterious reserve weighs upon me, sir, with unaccustomed oppression.”
“It is something that you have learned this morning?” demanded the daughter. “I’ll make you tell me as soon as we’re alone.”
“Ah, that cannot be,” the father answered. “My faith has been honourably pledged, and must be scrupulously observed.”
“But surely it couldn’t have been stipulated that _I_ was not to know,” she urged. “That would be absurd. And besides, who knows of even my existence over here?”
“Incomprehensible as it may appear to your perceptions,” responded Mr. Skinner, “it happens that you were particularly alluded to in the terms of the confidential compact imposed upon me.”
“Then you had no business to enter into it at all,” she replied, vigorously. “Papa, I am surprised at you!”
There was something in his thoughts which lit the old gentleman’s dry countenance with a transient gleam of enjoyment. “I hazard the humble opinion that your surprise will be appreciably augmented when, at the proper time, the truth shall have been revealed to you.” He turned, with the flicker-ings of a whimsical smile in his eye, to their guest. “It is an extraordinary coincidence, sir; but you are also in a manner associated with the occult event to which I may not at present more pointedly refer.”
David musingly looked the old gentleman in the eye. “Yes, I know,” he answered; “but I agree with you that it should not be divulged to your daughter. As you have said, we men of the world are in duty bound to keep a decent veil drawn over certain phases of life. I am quite with you in that, sir; we cannot sufficiently respect and guard the sweet-minded innocence of our young ladies.”