Naylor watched them with amusement. "He'll catch it on that walk!" he was
thinking. "She's going to let him have it! I wish I could be there to
hear." He spoke to them openly: "I'm sorry you must both go, but, since
you must, go together. Your walk will be much pleasanter."

Mary understood him well enough, and gave him a flash from her eyes. But
Beaumaroy's face betrayed nothing, as he murmured politely: "To me, at
all events, Mr. Naylor."

Naylor was not wrong as to Mary's mood and purpose. But she did not find
it easy to begin. Pretty quick at a retort herself, she could often
foresee the retorts open to her interlocutor. Beaumaroy had provided
himself with plenty: the old man's whim; the access to the old man so
willingly allowed, not only to her but to Captain Alec; his own candor
carried to the verge of self-betrayal. Oh, he would be full of retorts,
supple and dexterous ones! As this hostile accusation passed through her
mind, she awoke to the fact that she was, at the same moment, regarding
his profile (he, too, was silent, no doubt lying in wait to trip up her
opening!) with interest, even with some approval. He seemed to feel her
glance, for he turned towards her quickly--so quickly that she had no
time to turn her eyes away.

"Doctor Mary"--the familiar mode of address habitually used at the house
which they had just left seemed to slip out without his consciousness of
it--"You've got something against me; I know you have! I'm sensitive that
way, though not, perhaps, in another. Now, out with it!"

"You'd silence me with a clever answer. I think that you sometimes make
the mistake of supposing that to be silenced is the same thing as being
convinced. You silenced Captain Naylor--oh, I don't mean you've prevented